Where are you coming from?

First Assignment/Reflective Essay

Important note: your instructor may use this assignment as is, modify it, or give you an alternative.

Spend some time thinking—and freewriting—about a place you feel connected to, perhaps someplace you love, a place that has meaning for you. Maybe it’s in your hometown or nearby, or maybe you only visited once. Maybe it’s a local mall or your favorite freeway overpass—the place can be as urban as you want. Or not.

Describe your relationship to the environment in this place. Why does the place matter? How does this environment affect you and the larger community? How would feel if it weren’t there anymore? In The Grapes of Wrath, Muley chooses to stay on the farm and not leave with his family, describing himself as a kind of ghost. Why is your place important enough for you to haunt?

The Residential Life staff may offer sessions for you to discuss these materials.

Below are some materials you can use for inspiration, but they are not a specific part of assignment.

Note: you will need a special login and password from your instructor to access these documents because they are copyright protected. The login and password were given out at the first plenary.

Essay

N. Scott Momaday's The Man Made of Words (excerpts)

Leslie M. Silko's Gardens in the Dunes (excerpts)

Wallace Stegner Introduction to Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs

Poems

"Luna's Cut" by Julia Butterfly Hill\, who engaged in a two year treesit to save a 600 year old redwood see image

"Sowing Seeds" by Elba R. Sanchez

"At Tower Peak" by Gary Snyder

Images

Urban

South Central Farm LA

Suburbia