From Landscape to Literature: What Can Writing about Nature Bring to the Classroom?
Abstract
In Icons of Loss and Grace, Susan Hanson describes a moment when, as a teacher, she asks her students: “where do you meet Mystery in your life?”, noting that most of them looked at her in puzzlement 47 . Her aim is to underline how much strength and wisdom one can get from the natural world, and for her, it is earth that teaches the mysteries of life; it is through nature that the human spirit comprehends the fact that a life can flourish for a season, die, and vanish like the morning fog 101 . Hanson’s question intends to alert the students to the necessity of being engaged with the world they live in, and consequently, to inquire permanently about the purpose of their lives.
References
- Allen, Paula Gunn. “Special Problems in Teaching Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony.” Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony: A Case Book. Ed. Allan Chavkin. Oxford, Eng.: Oxford UP, 2002. 83-90.
- Beckert, Cristina, coord. Natureza e Ambiente: Representações na Cultura Portuguesa. Lisboa: Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa, 2001
- Buell, Lawrence. The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture. Cambridge, MA: Belknap-Harvard UP, 1995.
- Cather, Willa. O Pioneers! New York: Library of America, 1987.
- Couto, Mia. Pensatempos: Textos de Opinião. Lisboa: Editorial Caminho, 2005.
- Elder, John. “Teaching at the Edge.” 4 March 2007. .
- Finch, Robert, and John Elder, eds. The Norton Book of Nature Writing. New York: Norton, 1990.
- Fitzgerald, Scott. The Great Gatsby. Harmondsworth, Eng: Penguin, 1988.
- Glotfelty, Cheryll, and Harold Fromm, eds. The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1996.
- Hanson, Susan. Icons of Loss and Grace: Moments from the Natural World. Lubbock: Texas Tech UP, 2004.