To help you consider what’s meaningful to you and trace your learning journey over the course of the semester, you will regularly reflect on the readings, our class discussions, and your own nature connection practice. This gives us also an opportunity to engage each other outside of class. Unless otherwise noted on the schedule, you can use the following questions as a starting point but don’t limit yourself. The purpose is to engage in a deep exploration of something that matters to you in relation to the readings, discussions, and practice.
What struck you most in our discussions, the new readings and your nature practice? What was puzzling, intriguing, gratifying, troubling, or upsetting? How so?
What specific insight, image, metaphor, passage or concept from the readings resonates with you? Why? How is it related to what your experience in your practice and life?
What questions do you have about the discussion, reading or your practice?
The most important aspect of this assignment is to do it. If you have done the practice and the reading and attended class, your reflections are bound to be of value. Practice embracing authentic self-expression and imperfection.
Timeliness is essential. For your reflections to become part of the larger conversation, your blog posts need to be submitted on time.
Length is variable. Five sentences is too short; the ideal is an engaging paragraph or two (somewhere between 300 and 500 words).
Integration: To prepare you to speak in a nuanced way about nature connection, each post should integrate reflections on your home practice and the readings explaining with nuance how they illuminate your current experience and/or may be helpful to you going forward.
Audience. Your audience (classmates and professors) is familiar with the practice and readings and our discussions. Please assume that we are genuinely interested in your views.
Focus. A compelling blog entry focuses on a specific idea and explores it in some depth. Choose an idea that comes from a genuine question/insight/observation you’d like to explore further, one that is not based on a cliché, and does not present a broad generalization.
Specificity. When possible and necessary use concrete examples from the readings and your practice to support your point.
End with a question. Your blog posts need to be rich enough that we can engage with your insights and one way of doing that is to raise a question/s. The question(s) needs to be something you are genuinely interested in exploring with others.
Voice. Use or (re-)discover your own voice. We are all interested in your authentic and sincere response including the voice that comes with it.
Post your blog post by 5 PM on Mondays (and occasionally Wednesdays), using the comment box on the appropriate week’s schedule page.
By 6 PM that day, read at least 5 of your peers' blog posts and --using the "reply" button-- comment on at least one post in a way supports their growth and expanding on their ideas. Please choose a post that does not yet have a comment.
In evaluating your contributions to the blog, we are checking to make sure your posts are timely and substantive. Because this is a conversation, late posts are not accepted. You can use a token for a late or missed blog post.