Essay Assignment
Wilderness and US Culture
Dr. Michael Lewis

DUE DATE:  DECEMBER 11 IN CLASS.  NO LATE PAPERS ACCEPTED  

For this essay, please consider the role of wilderness in YOUR life.  We are all Americans, and we all experience wilderness in a fashion which is in many ways consistent with some elements of larger American cultural attitudes towards nature.  Much as we might prize our uniqueness, we are all living repositories of cultural beliefs and prejudices that have arisen through history.  The key element of this assignment is my request that you position yourself and your beliefs in relationship to American cultural beliefs about wilderness throughout the last 400 years.  How do your attitudes/beliefs reflect ideas or figures from class?  Are you at heart a romantic?  Or no?  A preservationist? A conservationist?  A Deep Ecologist? A Social Ecologist? Some unique mixture? Don’t simply critique these figures, or make a listing of all of them, and how you agree or disagree.  I don’t want you to include them all!  Analyze your personal beliefs –what cultural trends do they reflect,  and how they link to larger historical trends, as exemplified by X,Y, or Z?  The greater sophistication you use in explaining your personal ideas within the context of the course narrative, the better your grade will be.  An essay that is completely introspective, and does not link your own beliefs/feelings to the larger historical narrative of this class can get NO HIGHER than a C (if everything else is perfect).  Conversely, I will be similarly displeased with a boring list of U.S. figures without any introspective thought on your part. I expect for your paper to include at least some material from both the American Wilderness and Great New Wilderness Debate texts.

 This essay is worth 20% of your course grade.  Your paper must be turned in on time, December 11th.  No late papers will be accepted.  You must type your essay, using a 12 point font, 1 or 1.25 inch margins, double spaced.  Please use a cover page for your personal info (name, title, etc.).  Clarity of organization and presentation (including grammar) are essential elements of any good writing; your grade will reflect your attention to these details, as well as your thoughts themselves. Your paper must at a minimum reach onto the fifth page - in other words, four full pages, plus a minimum of a line. Please do not play with the font or margins to make your paper look longer. 

 This assignment is for you to write an essay, not a research paper.  As such, please do not conduct additional research.  You will use some quotations from class texts in your essay, though.  You must, of course, cite them.  You can do this however you like, though internal citation is easy. (author, page)  Failure to cite quotations is plagiarism, one of the gravest errors possible in academic work, and I will pursue that vigorously.

 Please come talk with me during my office hours, or by appointment, if you have any questions about this assignment.