EcoLit 313

hey everyone- this is rather late posting but if anyone has been still lurking around serendip over winter break, here is a link to my soundcloud account, which I uploaded all the recordings I had taken over the semester. There are some you haven't heard, so if you had liked the sound recordings you should check them out!

https://soundcloud.com/saragladwin

            For my final project, I want to reflect on a big part of the way I think a lot of us think about the environment (occasionally without admitting it to ourselves). To do this, I have to examine something that we haven't touched on so much in class: fear. One thing I kept coming back to this semester but never really found the time to talk about was the fact that I was having a hard time fully embracing the attitude of "love your environment, go outside and frolic in it" and the occasional "...or you're a bad person" that some of our readings seemed to imply. This is mostly because my journey to familiarize myself with the outside world contained a great deal of fear that I had to overcome, and I don't believe that I could be one of the only ones that experienced this.

I have been an active listener, and an average comment-maker. I have been actively working on talking more in class though, without being too careful about whether what I had to say was "good enough."

On-line, I got really into my site-sit responses. Out-of-doors in our excursions I was very excited to be part of the activities. In-class, I could have worked more on having points to make, but did try to comment building off of other people's points and bring another perspective into use.

The site-sit experiments were very personal, as were my ways of approaching them. But after class, a friend and I would always dissect what had gone on in class and we would talk about postings on Serendip. Some of these conversations might have been mentioned once or twice in a post, but could have been mentioned more. 

I hoped, especially in my Web Papers, to contribute by choosing different topics, especially in Web Paper 3 my wish was to expose to poetry in a differing cultural context. I wanted to bring a part of South Asia into the very (and perhaps understandably, since its what we know best?) U.S. based discussion.

My experience in this class this semester was very interesting. I was constantly comparing my experience in the class with Sara Gladwin's, who felt entirely different about the course than I did. To me, I felt as if all the class members were getting incredibly close. This was my smallest class this semester- by about two or three people. Maybe because of this, I felt as if I got to know everyone incredibly well, more than I did for any of my other courses. Yet I know Sara felt as if she didn't know anyone, which was frustrating for me. I kept wishing she could appreciate the closeness I felt to the other class members. But I also completely understood where she was coming from. That didn't stop my experience from being tinged by her experience, though, just as I'm sure my experience effected hers.

As for the readings, I often felt as if the class discussion totally changed my entire perception of the text. I would often read articles on my own and feel and feel completley fine with them- I agreed with the author's statements, I understood what they were saying. I had little critique. But then I would come to class and during the discussion, somehow find problems I hadn't picked up on. Or, I would become frustrated that we were just reiterating the same arguments over and over again. I guess part of my frustration was good- it means I was critically thinking about the text. But sometimes discussing the same issues repeatedly tested my limits. I particularly felt this with Terry Tempest WIlliam's work, for some reason. 

I was thinking about my process for the "Teach In" when I read the objectives of this "diffracting" assignment - I think that I was already starting to diffract, trying to understand my process of learning in this class. So, with that as a background, I'll consider the specific areas of review. 

Group work/Participation - I think that I have been very "present" in class. Participation for me, sometimes is just critical thinking and note-taking - I have to wait for a while before I start to see connections in the material. Sometimes, participation meant that I had to work through those connections out loud. I think I was more focused on my own learning in this class than on others' learning, though I did make an effort to ask questions and encourage other people's writing online. Over time, as we got to be more comfortable with one another, I felt that I could be more vulnerable, in some ways - especially during the final teach-in. 

For our final teach-in, I played Blue Mind, by Alexi Murdoch. Rather than focussing specifically on the content that interested me in this course, I wanted to demonstrate how my own learning process has developed.

I think the lyrics of this song compliment my personal trajectory  really well. The first stanza is somewhat vague - what does it mean? no time? sleeping? I feel some confusion (though calm) when thinking about these lyrics. At the start of the semester, it seemed as though we were trying out a lot of different things, and just getting immersed in the content. I struggled with that immersion. 

In the second stanza ("go free of time") - This represents the moments in class when I started to let go, let learning happen or not happen. I had to hibernate, gel, that sort of thing - I had to stop trying to control the outcome, something that I am still struggling with. 

The chorus, "slowly slowly I am drifting," keeps coming back to me. In class, I felt as though I was drifting at times, and I could do this either by choice or by need. I want to choose to drift, especially if it's going to happen anyway. This feels a lot like "wandering" to me - 

Joining this class was one of the biggest risks I’ve taken with my education. I was already taking an introductory language course, which required meeting every weekday for class, and I was taking a 360 course cluster that required an intense amount of attention and dedication. I had just come from taking three courses the previous Spring semester because I had been on academic probation upon my return from a required semester away from Bryn Mawr. I had been required to take time off because I was unable to complete several of my courses freshman year. From a very early point in my life, I’ve been identified as notoriously unable to finish everything I touch. From a plate of food, to drawings, conversations, papers- to quote my mother, I’ve never been able to “cross the finish-line.” As I’ve grown in my learning, I’ve come to appreciate some of the ways in which I allow myself room to grow, to add, to change and edit myself. However, adding a fifth course, in addition to my course load and my history seemed ludicrous to most of my friends. I persisted because there was something about the idea that I couldn’t let go of in my head. The reasons I spoke about were because I have many requirements to make up because of time off and because I was very interesting in the course subject. Looking back now though, I think I also took this course because I had something to prove- to my friends, my family and myself. I had to push the limits of my capabilities for once, and stop playing safe cards. I needed to know how far I could go, and if I could go further.

The exact origins of the dream catcher are unclear due to the destruction of oral Native American tradition by white settlers, but it seems that the dream catcher originated with the Ojibwe people, who refer to themselves as Anishnabe, meaning “first people.” As the most powerful tribe in the Great Lakes region, heir territory covered what is now Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ontario, and Manitoba.

The Story of the Dream Catcher

A few of my most favorite readings from this course include Terry Tempest Williams, Thoreau, The Lives of Animals, Nature Writing for Women (article), as well as Solnit, Laduke, Bohm, and Berry. I found these pieces to be incredibly insightful and eye-opening. I found many of the other readings to be interesting, but either not particularly intriguing or too dense. I found Waring’s essay to be a bit too dense – especially because I am not very fond of economics - and LeGuins science fiction piece to not be particularly interesting for me (I prefer nonfiction or realistic fiction). So the challenge came here then – being able to pay attention and try my best in understanding the pieces I found rather difficult or uninteresting to read. I certainly grew as a reader in this course – through the wide variety of pieces we have read from various fields, I found that I was exposed to numerous different types of writing and readings. I also was able to find a balance between noticing the sections of a reading I should pay close attention to – enough so that I had understood the main points - and those that I could skim – whereas traditionally in an academic course I used to read every passage word for word. Of course there were those pieces however (Tempest Williams, Sonit, Berry, Lives of Animals) that I could not resist reading every word.