Fieldcraft update (1/21)

Journal assignment for next week: find, draw, and identify five more birds. After you'e made a drawing for identification, find a photo of the same bird and draw it carefully.

Expected learning outcomes: Students will be able to: identify birds; use field guides; and draw for identification

Landscapes update (1/21)

We will be meeting at the English/Philosophy courtyard on Thursday. Bring your art kits; I'll have your journals.

This week's journal assignment: Look for third places. Identify and describe them, and make an argument for why they are third places.

For next week, read 'Classic Coffeehouses," in your course packet. Be prepared to lead a discussion on it. In reading the essay, choose questions that you might ask the class in your capacity as discusssion leader.

Expected learning outcomes For Tuesday: students will be able to distinguish built structures and landscapes that enhance community

Expected learning outcomes for Thursday: students will be able to see and draw objects in perspective

Landscapes (week of 1/20; 1/22)

I hope that none of you were too terribly frozen after our bike ride yesterday. :-)

Journal assignment (due in the milk crate by 5 PM Tuesday): Yesterday we rode around looking at ordinary objects and thinking about what they had to tell us about people, culture, ourselves. Notably, we looked at manhole covers for the sewer system. Some were plain Jane, some were fancy. Here is a question worth pondering: what is the purpose to making a sewer manhole cover beautiful if nobody will ever notice it? That is, is there value in designing beauty into something no one notices? Is the world a different place if the manhole covers are all plain?

Think about that question and go find an ordinary object/place on campus. Describe it for us. Think in turn about why you picked that object. What made you curious about it? What do you want to know about it? What can it tell you just by looking at it and thinking about it? Is it beautiful in some way? Is it something that no one notices? Is that a good, neutral, or bad thing?

Expected learning outcomes: finding, recognizing, and describing the aesthetics in the ordinary; explaining the values within cultural contexts

Reading for next week: "The Problem with Place in America"

Tuesday discussion will be in the classroom.

Fieldcraft: Re Crazy Creeks

If you want to purchase an NHH Crazy Creek, let me know and I'll bring one to Goedeke Library lake next week. They are $25 each.

Current Readings for the week of 1/19

Discussion points for Solnit (consider these as you read; make notes if needed; add others):

• What is the opposite of being lost? What would Solnit say it is?
• What are the emotions attached to being lost?
• What do you find when you are lost (what do you gain)?
• What has changed about being lost in today's world? How do we respond differently than someone a century ago might have?
• How does Solnit use language as both a map and a destination? Does she write toward a specific sentence or thought? Use specific examples in defending your argument.
• In what ways is there synchronicity between the essays and your own life?

Current Readings update

Apparently the bookstore is out of Solnit's book. Don't worry about it. Go ahead and come to class tomorrow and we'll work it all out.

Fieldcraft for the week of January 20

Meet at Goedeke Library lake. We will be learning to draw birds for identification. Bring your art kit, binoculars, and bird field guide. You will also be more comfortable if you bring something on which to sit.

Journal assignment: Read "The Mappist." How do you think this short story by Lopez relates to this course?

Prep the journal for use: include a scale for measurement, the Beaufort scale, and a pocket if you so desire. It would probably be helpful to create a reminder list of what goes in the daily log.

Landscapes for the week of 1/13; 1/15

Meet at Tech Terrace Park (23rd and Flint) on Thursday, with your bike and art kit. Be sure to dress for the weather.

We'll be exploring the 'hood, looking for some of the things about which Stilgoe wrote.

Continue thinking about our classroom discussion. In particular look for ways that the outward landscape shapes the inward one.

Tuesday's Current Readings tutorial is cancelled.

We're going to have to rearrange the Tuesday group's schedule. So go ahead and come on Wednesday and we'll work it all out.

Friday's Current Readings tutorial cancelled

See you next week at our regularly scheduled meeting times.

Welcome back!

Greetings, everyone. I hope everyone had a safe, healthy, and happy winter break. Owing to an evolving family emergency, I may or may not be in class this first week of the semester. I have arranged for someone to come to class and hand out the syllabi, however, and s/he will tell you to check this blog for any necessary preliminary instructions. So without further ado, here they be:

NHH 3306 "Current Readings in Natural History":

We will begin our readings with Rebecca Solnit's book, A Field Guide to Getting Lost. Please go ahead and purchase this book from the bookstore. You may also purchase the others there as well, or wait to purchase them at your discretion.

We will spend approximately 2 weeks on each of the texts this semester, so you may begin reading now if you like. However, the first order of business will be to discuss/arrange the tutorial schedule. If I am not there on Wednesday, I will try very hard to be there on Friday, and we can proceed with scheduling and assignments from there.

NHH 1302 "Introductory Fieldcraft":

I should be back in LBB before class next week, so I am not too concerned at this point about giving you first-day instructions. However, you will find books available in the TTU bookstore; we will begin with the bird field guide.

There is also a short story to be picked up at Copytech; it must be read before the second class meeting. The short story is from the collection titled Light Action in the Carribbean, which is available, used and new, from various sources, for about the same price as the single short story (copyright fees). However you procure the short story, it must be read by the second class period.

Finally, pick up an Art Kit at Varsity Bookstore, in the art department. If you go in the north entrance, and look to your right, it should be on top of a glass counter, labeled "NHH 1302."

HONS 1304 "Landscapes":

A course packet should be available to you at Copytech by the end of this or the beginning of next week. Read the first entry, from Outside Lies Magic by Stilgoe (I believe the chapter is titled "Chapter One: Beginnings," though I do not have it right in front of me, so I can't be sure; in any case, it is the first one).

Read this and be prepared to discuss it in class next week. (Reading for discussion will be helped if, as you read the material, you imagine that you will be leading a discussion yourself. Ask yourself what questions you would ask about the things that interest you. What makes you curious about what the author says?)

An art kit is also available at Varsity bookstore in the art department. If you go in the north entrance, and look to your right, it should be on top of a glass counter, labeled HONS 1304, 3304, or 2304.

Meet in the classroom on Tuesday.

That's all! If there is anything else that crops up about which you might have questions, feel free to email me.

Thank you for your patience with my absence as I attend to matters associated with my father's passing.

BBB Final and Final week of classes

Greetings all! We will meet tomorrow to work on our final drawings for the first half of class, then we will draw skulls again for a post-test assessment of our new-found skills.

Final bird drawings will be due at 1:30 pm, December 9, along with your journals, all previous work, and your binoculars. Please put your name on the binoculars so that I can credit you for turning them in. If you do not turn the bins in, you will not receive a grade.

See you tomorrow!

Landscapes final journal and project assignments

Journal: pick three dwellings at RHC that have some resonance for you. Do a fairly detailed sketch for each, and then try to imagine what daily life was like. What did it feel like to be living there? What sort of chores would consume the resident's day? What reflections on your own life does it spark? Make detailed notes.

Final project: pick one dwelling from among the three and tell the story of that place. Use your notes from the journal and expand on them. Try to find out the story behind the dwelling. Let your curiosity guide you to ask questions (some of which you may not be able to answer, but bring them up anyway). For example, what did they eat? What was winter like inside the home?

Be creative if you like--include recipes, imagine that you are that homesteader and write a letter to the folks back home, plan a Christmas celebration for the home, etc...

Include a refined drawing of the place.

Journals and projects are due December 9th at 1:30 pm. You may pick them up next semester.

Have a great Holiday!

Landscapes weather update

Don't worry about riding your bikes today--we'll be staying at the Ranching Heritage Center. Also, be sure to dress warmly, as we'll be sitting and drawing.

Landscapes for November 20th

Meet at the Ranching Heritage Center by 2:20. The reading for the week will be in the milk crate outside my office after 11am on Tuesday.

Landscapes for November 20

Homework due: What is Main Street? Is it an idea? A place? Some combination of both? How does downtown LBB fit or not fit into your argument? What are the physical aspects of the landscape there that inform what you have to say about it? Think of all the things you can use to describe the space that help to define it as a particular place (e.g. angled parking) and not someplace else.

Make copious notes/sketches, and include analysis.

Reading and location for class on November 20: TBA

Landscapes for November 13

Greetings all! I hope you had a great time at the coffee houses last week.

Your midterms are graded and in the milk crate outside the door of my office. There is also a copy of this week's reading by Stilgoe. Don't forget to pick up a copy and read it before class on Thursday.

We will be meeting on Thursday, with our bikes (tires pumped up and ready to go!) , outside the Honors College north entrance. We will be riding to the downtown area of LBB.

BBB for November 11

Meet at the pond behind Goedeke Library (South Loop 289 and Quaker), in the west side parking area.

Bring your art kit, binoculars, and something comfortable to sit on. We will practice drawing birds in the field.

Next week, bring whatever reference materials (including natural hisotry info) you need to do a final bird drawing. You pick the bird, either from the skins I brought last week, or another. Look up what habitat the bird would be found in, since you will be doing a drawing of the bird in its environment. Bring thumbnail sketches to class showing how you plan to compose the drawing. Once the composition is approved, you will proceed in the usual fashion.