For this project, we completed an essay about our sense of place and environmental ethic. To write it, we learned about the form of nature writing and how to use the Grand style by reading excerpts from Edward Abbey’s work and Ashley’s own creations. Reading nature writing and Edward Abbey’s writing in particular taught me about sense of place and how to incorporate it into my writing. Leading up to the final essay, we first learned about different environmental ethics such as conservationism and preservationism, and different approaches to thinking about energy. We also had a mini-project where we researched and discussed different energy productions such as solar, coal, oil, wind, and water power. We researched environmental impacts and methods as well as heard from various speakers from all ends of the spectrum. Having the speakers talk to us about their perspectives on energy, how their energy type worked, and the ups and downs of their energy type was really eye-opening and better than just researching it. For example, speakers from the Navajo Transitional Energy Company talked about their use of coal and its importance to the Navajo nation through its provision of jobs and contributions to the Navajo government. In this case, the environmental impact wasn’t as important as the people of the Navajo nation, and it was interesting to learn about this perspective.
In general, my writing became more descriptive and adopted the Grand Style. I learned how to use more descriptive language and to use it to show my ideas rather than tell them through my journal assignments. One of my journal assignments was to describe a scene with as much sensory detail as possible, and another was to show two different perspectives on an object relating to energy through only showing and not telling. These journal assignments really helped me to find descriptive language to not only liven up my writing but to also show the reader my own perspective on energy and place and keep them engaged with what I was trying to say. Between my first draft and my final draft, my content changed because I added several paragraphs that added onto my ideas and made them clearer, as well as added new ones. The biggest change between my drafts was the clarity of my ideas and my sentence fluency. From much of my peers feedback, I realized that several parts of my essay that described key parts and ideas of my environmental ethic weren’t clear and were hard to understand. I cleared this up by making the sentences and ideas clearer and more simple. I changed my descriptive language in my essay because my peers pointed out that I had used the same adjective, “stretch”, nearly three times. I changed many of the words that repeated themselves so that I had a variety of adjectives to make my writing more interesting and not repetitive.
This project has helped me personally grow in my opinions about nature and the environment. It made it clear to me what I believed, even though it took a while and I struggled to it. When we started working on the essay in class, I had no idea what to write or what my ethic was. I had many disconnected ideas and beliefs about nature and what it means to me, but I couldn’t really put it into definitive words. Also, I couldn’t really think of a place that spoke to me. I started out with several ideas about the Grand Canyon, Japan, and other places that hold great meaning to me. But I found that even though my ideas were good, they didn’t resonate with me. These were places that I used to have a connection with. I still do, but the connection and the sense of place isn’t as fresh now as it was when I was experiencing it. So I looked back through my journal assignments, my Humanities Starters document, and some of my old diaries for inspiration. I found that my journal assignments talked about a place that I felt very passionate about and could easily go back to, as it’s just a few miles from my house. So I used the content from my journal assignments and started writing about the cliffs that I love. After that I realized I could easily incorporate my environmental ethic. Actually, incorporating my environmental ethic, transitioning it, and integrating it within my writing was the easiest part. What was hard was finding my sense of place and defining how I felt about it. It’s not a sensation easily put into words, but I think I did a pretty good job of it.