Week 1: Introductions

April 7 Classwork:

Class overview

• What is our focus?

• What will we do? Community Engagement

• How will you be assessed? Grading Contracts

• What are your questions?

Introductions

• List

• Cluster

• Read Remember by Joy Harjo

• Write paying attention to texts what did you notice about Joy Harjo's poem: the word choice, line breaks ?

• Freewrite: What do you remember?

• Group poem via JamBoard

• What did you learn about yourselves and classmates and our class today? What questions do you have?

Homework For April 8th

Read

• Urban Wild Foraging--Walk With Me, a One-Mile Radius by Dilafruz Williams p1-14

• If you are able and it is safe, take a walk in a one-mile radius from where you live; and observe with all of your senses: what you smell, hear, feel, taste, and see..

Write Reflection 1

Please write at least 600 and no more than 800 words of reflection about Williams's essay in which you:

• Compare your experiences with walking, with food, or with nature to the experiences Williams describes.

• Identify a quotation that resonates with you or puzzles you and explain why you selected it.

• Note what you observed about Williams’s writing and identify at least one specific example of her style, such as her use of the first person voice, her references to other writers, her descriptive language, or another feature of the text that made an impression on you.

• Note the questions that this text raised for you.

• If you were able to take a walk, describe your walk using descriptive language that includes all of your senses: what you smelt, heard, felt, tasted, and saw

Optional:

• Finding Your Way In: Invention as Inquiry (Lessner and Craig) This is a great overview of how to read like a writer and how to approach writing as a process with helpful tips for generating material and peer review. If you wish to complete an extra labor reflection on this piece, it should be between 600-800 words. If you would like help creating a reflective prompt, just let me know.

April 8th Classwork

• Class Q & A

• Elemental Writing and the Elements of Textual Analysis

• Timelines: Writing experiences and goals. What makes for positive learning experiences?

Homework for April 9th

Read

• Hip Hop, Food Justice, and Environmental Justice p 177-192 by Anthony J. Nocella, Priya Parmar, Don C. Sawyer, and Michael Cermak

• “The Rose That Grew From Concrete” p 1-7 by David Kirkland

Write Reflection 2:

Please at least 600 and no more than 800 words of reflection about these essays in which you:

• Identify the central problems that Nocella et al and Kirkland describe and the solutions that they propose.

• Identify a quotation that resonates with you or puzzles you and explain why you selected it.

• Compare Nocella et al and Kirkland’s descriptions of school and food access with your own experiences.

• Consider how these texts relate to our class.

• Note the questions that these texts raised for you.

• Say a little about the writers' style and use of rhetorical appeals.

Classwork April 9

• Goals

• Elemental Writing 2

• Joy Harjo A Map to the Next World/reading

• Write paying attention to texts what did you notice about Joy Harjo's poem: the word choice, line breaks

• Freewrite/draw: you must make your own map

• Collaborative writing: Jam Board

• Mapping: Getting to know our neighbors

• Writing Partnership Sign Up

• Community Commitments

• Asynchronous discussion 1

Homework for April 12th

Read for Monday

On gardening and agriculture

• Leah Penniman

• Permaculture

• Rewilding

Write Reflection 3:

Please write at least 600 and no more than 800 words of reflection about these texts in which you address the following:

• What connections do you see between permaculture and poetry?

• What are the relationships between food, gardening, education, and liberation in the texts above as well as the other texts we have read this week?

• What would rewilding the curriculum--especially in regard to writing--look like?

• Asynchronous discussion 1

April 12th Classwork

• Permaculture

• Mapping: Getting to know our neighbors + rewilding

Homework for April 13th

Read:

• How to Be An Ecological Gardener

• Pollinator Gardens

• Food Forests in Maine

• Viles Arboretum

• Gardening for Wildlife

Take another 1 mile walk and write about it using multisensorial description. Pay attention to the landscape keeping in mind what the Annie s White says in the Pollinator Garden website

Return to your map and sketch in places where you could image transforming the landscape into pollinator gardens or food forests or wildlife habitats.

Write Reflection 4:

• How, if at all, does pollinator gardening and gardening for wildlife overlap with permaculture principles?

• Say a bit about your walk. What did you notice this time?

• What would campus look like if we had more pollinator gardens, food forests or wildlife habitats? Look at your map and the resources you read for today, and begin to describe what one such garden might look like.

April 13th

Creative writing workshop:

• Writing in response to images

• Research for creative writers

• Mary Oliver The Summer Day Video Practice Peer Review

Preparing to work with community partners.

Patty MacKinnon

April 14th

Creative writing workshop: Introduction to peer review

• Peer Review + Mini Writing Workshop

• Conference Sign Up https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0/selfsched?sstoken=UUd4NVJJa2lZVXQ1fGRlZmF1bHR8NjQ2NTk4ZWIzZDk3N2E3Y2JiMDlhNWM5MDdmODI5NjU

• Workshop Sign Up

• Public Spaces for Poetry + Creative Writing

April 15th Gardening or virtual field trip

April 16th No class. Community Engagement + Asynchronous Discussion.

• Draft of creative writing due by the end of the day.

For Monday, April 19th

• The Man Who Planted Trees (text) by Jean Giono or video

• Rachel Carson: Excerpt from Silent Spring

• Harryette Mullen On Starting a Tanka Diary

• Seven of Pentacles by Marge Piercy

Reflection 5:

• Giono uses the planting of trees as an allegory of sorts, while Carson focuses on bird song as an aural and visual symbol of human degradation of the environment. What are the other similarities between Jean Giono and Rachel Carson’s work? What are the other differences? If you were to plant something symbolically, what would you plant and what would it symbolize?

• Harryette Mullen establishes a practice of walking to create poetry, while Marge Piercy finds inspiration in a card from the tarot deck. Both poets and practices allow for an element of chance. What parts of their work stood out to you? Why? Experiment with using chance to create a poem by picking a tarot card to write about or by opening a book and picking the first line your eyes rest upon and using it as a free writing prompt.

• Look over the work we have read this semester--including the asynchronous discussion 1. Begin to offer definitions of the following

  • A good poem……

  • A good essay……

  • A good short story…...

Monday, April 19th: Classwork

• Community engagement updates:

  • Start time for Tuesdays

  • Writing partners

  • Other

• Creative writing workshop instructions

• Reading like a writer

• In class writing: preparing for writing workshops

• In class writing: review your creative writing--or other writing from this semester-- with an eye towards practicing one of the techniques we reviewed today: Imagery, symbolism, comparisons (similes and metaphors), voice, and/or organization. Share something in the chat or in this collaborative document.

For Tuesday, April 20th

Please read about the history of community gardens on the Smithsonian website

• Overview + the other sections:

• Vacant Lot Gardens

• School Gardens

• Wartime Gardens

• Thrift Gardens

• Victory Gardens

• Environmental Action and Urban Revitalization

• Growing a Community Gardening Movement

Review these resources about Lots to Gardens/The Nutrition Center

• Overview

• Children’s Gardens and Cooking

• Community Gardens

• Youth Leadership

And these resources about school and community gardens in Maine

• The Maine School Garden Network

• Maine Network of Community Food Councils

• The Good Food Council of Lewiston Auburn

• MOFGA: The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association

• Cultivating Community

Write Reflection 6:

What did you learn about the history of community gardens? What did you learn about the work of the Nutrition Center? What questions do you have about their work? How do you feel about partnering with them?

April 20th: Meet at 12:30 for to walk to the Nutrition Center.

Virtual Field Trip;

Watch this 10 minute TED talk about community gardens by Marissa Zarate

April 21st

Classwork

• Check in via chat: Work with Nutrition Center + Virtual Field Trip

• Review Public Project: Please post your questions as comments in the assignment sheet.

  • Breakout room discussion

• Prepare for writing partnerships breakout room discussion.

  • Fridays Coastal Enterprises (room 2)

  • Tuesdays/Wednesdays/Fridays with Patty MacKinnon (room 1)

• Playlists and organizational patterns

• Linguistic Justice

Homework:

• Prepare for our first writing workshop: Check the Creative Writing Sign Up Sheet.

  • Writers should post their work in the Sign Up Sheet.

  • Reviewers should see if they are in group A or B, read the writers' work, and prepare feedback.

April 22:

Classwork:

• Creative Writing Workshop

• Visual Design 1

• Preview next steps.

• Conferences

• How Can Black People Write About Flowers at a Time Like This by Hanif Abdurraqib

• Asynchronous discussion 3

April 26th:

• Finish asynchronous discussion 3

• Creative Writing Workshop

• Visual Design 1

• Preview next steps.

• Conferences

• How Can Black People Write About Flowers at a Time Like This by Hanif Abdurraqib

April 27th: Meet at Commons Garden at 12:30 to walk to Nutrition Center.

Virtual Field Trip 3 (This is also an extra labor option). If you cannot participate in our gardening work at the Nutrition Center today: Watch Growing Racial Equity & Food Justice Within School Gardens (about 1 hour) and complete a reflection of 600-800 words how these speakers connect racial equity, food justice, and school gardens.

Homework

Complete asynchronous discussion 3

Complete Reflection 7 Due prior to class April 28th

Take another walk and write about it.

This time, be sure to pass by at least three signs on campus or off campus.

If you are able to, include photos of the signs in your reflection.

In addition to using multisensorial details to describe your walk, analyze the purpose and audience of each sign as well as the elements of visual design that we discussed:

• Layout

• Colors

• Images

• Contrast

• Size

• Text

• Font

• Interactivity/Connections to webtexts

• Other

April 28Th:

Classwork

Creative writing workshops

April 29th: Gardening

Virtual Field Trip 4

• Spending about 45 minutes visiting Wolf's Neck Farm Camp and Acta Non Verba

• Write a reflection in which you compare and contrast what these organizations offer and pick a program or element that we might bring to the gardens at Bates or in Lewiston or in your home.

April 30th: Asynchronous discussion 4: Project Proposal

Monday, May 17th: Zoom

• Ross Gay: A Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude and video

• Introduction to inclusive proofreading + editing

• Optional: Peer review paper

• Sign up for final conferences.

Tuesday, May 18th: In person 12:45pm Wood Street

Wednesday, May 19th: In person Hedge Hall 208. I will be there are 12:30pm if you have any questions. Class will start at 12:45pm. We will like continue class outside. You will want to have your laptop handy.

Thursday, May 20th: In person 12:45pm meet at Commons Garden.

Ross Gay "Tomato On Board" from The Book of Delights

Thank you class document

Thank you poem

Grading + Assignments

Other Policies

Writing Partner information and Sign Up

Lindsey Adriaansen

Hannah Conkin

Eliza Fischer

Mari Pina Flores

Elysia Garza

Emma Johnston

Abigail Kany

Quinn Kieselowsky

Maddie Lee

Criselda Mele

Sabrina Mohamed

Priscilla Peraza

Abby Ryan

Samantha Shapiro

Ellie Vance

Christina Wang

Charlie Welsh

Follow the link above to a digital suggestion box where you can post questions, comments, and/or suggestions.