document resume se 016 982 title the elective … · prince and "the tool" (a chapter...

DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 086 507 SE 016 982

AUTHOR Cooper, MarilynTITLE The Elective Program in English. Course Title:

Writers and the Environments.INSTITUTION Milwaukee Public Schools, Wis. Div. of Curriculum and

Instruction.SPONS AGENCY Bureau of Elementary and Secondary Education

(DHEW/OE), Washington, D.C..PUB DATE 73NOTE 32p.

EDRS PRICE MF-$0.65 HC-$3.29DESCRIPTORS *Curriculum; English Education; *Environmental

Education; Guides; *Instructional Materials;Interdisciplinary Approach; *Language Arts; LearningActivities; Objectives; *Secondary Grades

IDENTIFIERS Elementary Secondary Education Act Title III; ESEATitle III

ABSTRACTThis document is a guide for a half- year elective

course offering secondary students the opportunity to examinewriters' insights on environments in a variety of literary types. Inaddition, language and composition experiences are developedutilizing the communications media. Though representative literaryselections are suggested for convenience, the teacher can selectmaterials dependent upon the abilities of the students. The suggestedactivities are applicable to many different literary forms. This workwas prepared under an ESEA Title III contract. (JP)

FILMED FROM BEST AVAILABLE COPY

U 5 DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH.EDUCATION & WELFARENATIONAL INSTITUTE OF

EDUCATIONTHIS DOCUMENT HA5 BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM

THE PERSON CR ORGANIZATION ORIGINA TING IT POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONSSTATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRE

SENT OFFICIAL NATIONAL INSTITUTE OFEDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY

THE ELECTIVE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH

COURSE TITLE: WRITERS AND THE ENVIRONMENTS

DEPARTMENT OF ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION

DIVISION OF CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION

MILWAUKEE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

1973

ACKNOWEDGMENT

Appreciation is expressed to MAE=Col= who organized the material for this

Developed Under Provisions of

TITLE III ESEA, ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION PROGRAM

John B. Kar ls, Curriculum SpecialistSecondary English Language Arts

Frisby D. Smith, Executive DirectorDepartment of Elementary and Secondary Education

Dwight TeelDeputy Superintendent of Schools

Richard P. Gousha, Superintendent of Schools

a

FOREWORD

This half-year elective offers an opportunity toexamine writers' insights on the environments in a varietyof literary types. In addition, language and lomposition,experiences are developed utilizing the communications

media. Specific aims of the offering are:

-- To expand understanding of the many environmentsfrom the personal to the global, both naturaland manmade

-- To involve students in activities that motivatethem to take personal action in saving theenvironments

-- To provide individual and small group projectsfor maximum student reaction

-- To emphasize a student-teacher rapport in whichteaching-learning roles are shared, making everymember of the class a resource

-- To strengthen skills in oral and writtencommunication

Though representative literary selections are suggestedfor convenience, English departmsnt chairmen in cooperationwith members of the English staff will select materialsdependent upon the abilities, interests, and backgrounds ofthe students. Materials selected should not duplicate thoseused in other offerings.

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ENVIRONMENTS: FROM THE PERSONAL TO THE GLOBAL

Preliminary Discussion

- - Consider how each individual is a unique environ-ment, affecting others and being affected in dailyinteractions.

T,D arrive at an interpretation of the many environ-ments, discuss with students the following concepts:

Environmental education is not a subject,but an approach to learning, a way of lookingat life with its many facets interacting.

While nature synthesizes parts into wholes,humankind tends to fragment wholes into parts,thereby threatening man's existence.

Earth is an organic spaceship whose manysub7systems interrelate to nourish life.

Environments can be classified as abiotic(nonliving), biotic (living), or cultural(originating from humans), all interacting.

Discovery and understanding of environmentalvalues are directly related to the discoveryand. understanding of the value of becoming aunique human being. Self-actualizationprecedes affective action.

The new environmental ethic looks at man asthe shaper of environments, reversing theconventional view of environments victimizingman.

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Environmental Attitudinal Survey (Sample)

1. Based on your judgment, rank from 1 (best answer) to 6(weakest answer) the following items, accordinE, to thGipcontribution to civilization:

competition, progress conflict, warconquest scientific progressharmony, order, peace education

2 The birth of a baby in which country puts the greatest drainon earth's natural resources?

MexicoCanada

WHY?

ItalyUnited States

IndiaSouth Africa -

j. Check the item which, in your estimation, makes the mostsensible statement about nature:

Nature is a vindictive force determined to win over man.Nature is a sublime force delighting man with its infinite

variety.Though man can modify nature somewhat, he cannot conquer it.Nature will survive in some form even if man transforms

earth into a wasteland.'Nature is indifferent, impartially'Providing feast or famine.

WHY?.

4. Check the life -style which best matches your future dream:

A comfort-oriented life with an increasing use of resource'sA ban declared on technology so that man can resume a

back-to-nature existenceA reduced standard of living in exchange for an improved. quality of life

WHY?

5. In several sentences, react to Emerson's observation, The

truest test of civilization is not...the size of the cities...but the kind of man the country turns out."

Human actions trigger environmental reactionswhich both add and detract from the qualityof life on the planet.

When human beings make their environmentsimpossible to live in, humankind will ultimatelybecome impossible.

Just as each person is a distinctive environment(microcosm), collective man is a global environ-ment (macrocosm).

Earth is finite, a closed system with limitedresources.

-- Formulate a class definition of the term environment.Consider the implications of the plural form and ofthe determiners an and the.

Suggested Activities

-- Show Man and His Environment: in Harmony and,inConflict, a sound-slide presentation which establishesa humanistic orientation to the environmental crisis.Before presenting the program, give students theattitudinal survey found on the opposite page. Thesame survey, or a variation of it, could be given atthe end of the course to measure students' expandedunderstanding of environmental issues. Sharerepresentative reactions with the class.

-- Assign committees the task of design-111g severalEnglish classroom arrangements which reflect theenvironmental concepts listed in the PreliminaryDiscussion. After students present their recommen-dations to the class and incorporate suggestions,this exercise in consensus can continue with anopen discussion of classroom procedures that considereach member of the class a contributing environment.

-- To demonstrate the idea of the individual interactingwith society, present this notion to the class: Ourinherited capacities become actual abilities only ifand as our environments activate them. After discuss-ing the wide application of this statement, assignan illustrative selection like The Miracle Worker orDiary of Anne Frank, or show The Wild Child.

-- To develop a more personal response to the environ-ments, show. How Many Lifetimes.

-- Direct students to write an impromptu theme exploringtheir reactions to a land-ude conflict like thefollowing: A school is surrounded by a green campuswhen a decision is made to pave a major portion ofthe area to provide for extra parking, tennis courts,and an athletic field.

-- Divide the class into small groups to devise lists ofconflicting attitudes about the environments,illustrating that solutions.are complex. Lists willprobably contain statements that nuclear war, massstarvation, and poverty are more pressing problemsthan pollution, or that extinction o2 endangeredspecies is unfortunate but not crucial. Have theentire class compile a master listing of controversialissues to be referred to throughout the elective.

-- Winston Churchill observed, "We shape our dwellings,and then our dwellings shape us." Ask students tobring concrete examples like pictures, objects, andsongs to. illustrate th., statement's impact and havethe students defend their choices. Use the activityto motivate the reading of a selection with a relatedpoint of view like T. G. Ballard's "The SubliminalMan" (short story), Stephen Vincent Hena's "By theWaters of Babylon" (short story), or Denise Levertov's"Merritt Parkway" (poem).

-- William Blake prophesied the future of industrialEngland's children in the line: "They became what

they beheld." Discuss with students how humankindcan become hardened to corruption, pollution, orwar. Conversely, people cannot become what theydo not behold. Direct the More imaginative studentsto express either of these ideas in a poem or shortstory. Provide the others with anthologies to findliterary expressions of the two ideas. Have studentsshare their material in small group discussions.

-- In a role-play situation,1 confront students withan environmental problem that has several impliedoptions. For instance, a fraternal organizationhas purchased tract of wilderness on a lake forrecreational use. When a developer opens anadjoining resort complex, land values soar, promptinga land-use conflict within the group. Students shouldrole-play the developer, resort owner, the general

, public, adjoining land owners, and factions withinthe organization to gain an understanding of themultiplicity of alternatives in decision-making.

-- As a follow -up activity, assign selections likeMac Kinlay Kantor's "The Wrath of the Raped" (essay),Robert Lowell's "The Mouth of the Hudson" (poem),Leo Tolstoy's "How Much Land Does Man Need?" (shortstory), or Henrik Ibsen's Enemy of the People (play).Students will discuss land-use conflicts as presentedin these literary selections.

-- Assign two pieces by a single author in which anapparently opposing view about the environment isexpressed. Selections like De Saint-Exupery's The LittlePrince and "The Tool" (a chapter from his Wind, Sand,and Stars) seem to offer contradictory attitudes abouttechnology. In a discussion, have students reconcilethe positive and negative concerns regarding the roleof the machine in enhancing the good life.

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-- Stress the relationship of semantics to humaninteracting by listing on the chalkboard wordssuch as garbag, waste, solid waste, Junk,recyclables, refuse, sewage, antiques, throwaways, castoffs. Have the class discuss theconnotation of each, considering the tendencyfor mans labels to determine his attitudes.

Teach/reteach the theme of definition. Have

students write a personalized definition ofenvironments stressing "what happens," not "whatis."

5

CIRCLES IN TIME


-- Consider humankind's need to look at life ascyclical movements or circles in time havingunique value to environments.

-- Explore the many cycles that measure life on thisplanet -- days, months, seasons, years, eons,evolution, devolution, holidays, tides, recycling.

-- Examine the cyclical character of attitudes concerningnature, humankind, and culture.


-- Direct students to research in farmers almanacs thekinds of environmental information provided there.Sharing with the clas their findings, studentsshould determine the element of truth at the coreof folklore, myth, and superstition.

-- As a follow-up activity, ask students to interviewfamily, relatives, and friends for stories of homeremedies, customs, or traditions passed down overthe generations. Review storytelling techniquesbefore asking students to prepare their anecdoteseither as oral or written accounts.

-- Suggest students research man's observance of environ-mental events like planting, harvesting, the winterand summer solstice, the vernal and autumnal equinox,floods, birth, death, marriage. This activity shouldlead to a discovery of the :ife processes motivatingritual, celebration, and custom.

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-- Show ILI Color 91 Spring, Summer, 1111, Winter,

four 8mm film cassettes without soundtrack. Divide

the class into, groups to design original scripts.Some groups may prefer to compose their own dialogue,poetry, and Music while others may prefer to researchalready existing material from which to weave a

narration. Students should tape each script as asynchronized soundtrack, illustrating their ability

. to discriminate symbol, mood, and nuance.

-- To make vivid man's natural inclination to relateto time cycles, assign a nonfiction account likeHenry David Thoreau's "In Wilderness Is thePreservation of the World," Hal Borland's "This Hill,This Valley" Cboth dealing with the four seasons),or Aldo Leopold's A Sand Cog= Almanac (tracing thetwelve months). In a followup discussion, askstudents to conjecture about the writer as a humanbeing, linking his individuality with his attitudesabout environments.

-- Provide class time periodically for students tokeep an account of their impressions of environments,both natural and manmade. They may wish to organizetheir observations in an almanac, in a seasonalformat, or in a diary, log, or journal.

-- Read aloud to the class Milton Geiger's poem, "I WillNot Go Back," his credo summing up man's evolutionfrom the slime to the Space Age. After probingstudent reactions to the poem, assign an impromptutheme in which students explore the ways individualsor mankind generally might revert to the cave.

-- Show "The Deer and the Forest," a film depicting cyclesin the life of the deer against a background of seasonaland habitat changes. As a follow -up, direct studentsto choose literature that shows an animal coping with

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its environment. Selections might includeEdwin Morgan's "Third Day of the Wolf," RobertTristram Coffin's "Swift Things Are Beautiful,"or Elizabeth Bishop's "The Fish." Students shouldexchange their impressions of the writers" observations in small groups.

- - Provide copies of Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8. Ask studentsto bring their favorite musical version of "Turn!Turn! Turn! To Every Thing There Is a Season." As

a group, decide which interpretation best suits theessence of the piece. Direct the class to concretizethe abstractions by suggesting specific instancesfor lines like: "A time to break down and a time tobuild up." Have students evaluate the applicabilityof this biblical ethic for the twentieth century.

-- Review the haiku form to prepare students to writetheir own on a special time of day like dawn, dusk,twilight, midnight, rush hour. Students may wishto use appropriate pictures to accompany their haikufor classroom display.

- - To illustrate the responsibility each generation hasfor the ones to come, read aloud to the class LouisMac Neice's "Prayer Before Birth." Examine the gamutof environmental issues with which the unborn childconfronts contemporary man.

- - T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral has severalchoruses which express a recurring theme, the cyclicalnature of life. After discussing these passages,arrange students in choral reading groups to interpretthe passages as a speech activity.

8

Teach/reteach the basics of panel discussionbefore grouping to research a variety of topicssuch as an examination of nature in the Psalmsand American Indian literature, the nature ofman in the Golden Age of Pericles and theRenaissance, or the nature of human interactionduring the Age of Reason and the Romantic Era.After. the panel presentation, encourage each classmember to devise a question generated by the panel.Seek questions like: Wily do ideas go out of styleonly to reappear in another era, or Why has Jefferson'sdream of an agrarian society failed in America? Thequestions may become them topics, additional discussion questions, or review questions.

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AN ENVIRONMENTAL STRAND: THE AMERICAN INDIAN


-- Consider the Indian philosophy that man belongs tothe land, not thht land belongs to man.

-- Explore Indian reverence for the natural beauty ofthe universe.

-- Compare the Indian self-concept of communion withman and nature to Western man's value system basedon amassing power, possessions, and wealth.

-- Examine the awe at the power of words expressed inIndian legends, poems, chants, and prayers.


-- Use The First Americans (Scholastic Art mg Man)as background for this unit. The package containsrecorded Indian music, an interview expressingIndian cultural values, slides, a pamphlet, and ateacher guide. Using the material as a resource,a volunteer student committee could design a classpresentation.

-- Encourage student writers to keep a list of strikingIndian imagery, for example, the Indian's instinctiveunderstanding of photosynthesis as the source of life(also a major theme in Royal Hunt of the Sun) whichthis Mescalero Apache line portrays:

The sunbeams stream forward, dawn boys,with shimmering shoes of yellow.

Have students find other examples of Indian natureimagery.

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-- Direct the class to research and compile a lexiconof local Indian place names which illustrate tribalrelationships to environments. Using sources likethe museum, the Wisconsin Historical Society, thecommunity, or local histories, have studentsconjecture why the white man absorbed the Indianplace names directly or in translation.

-- Divide the class into groups, each one conductingits on etymological research on the contributionof the Indian languages to English. Groups mightconsider categories of words like place names(Milwaukee, Wisconsin), animals (skunk, opossum),plants (tamarack, sequoia), foods (hominy, succotash),and culture (totem, wampum). Have groups sharefindings with the class.

-- To illustrate man's reliance on communicationthrough body language, assign this roleplaysituation to student volunteers. Suggest a meetingbetween Indians and settlers wherein informationabout hunting and processing wild game and buildinga Conestoga wagon is exchanged primarily throughbody language.

Assign a legend like the Alabama tribe's "TheOrphan" in which humans are portrayed as animalsfor humorous effect. Discuss the significance ofthis reversal, not common to Western Literature,which tends toward personification. Read aloudEve Merriam's poem "Mr. Zoo" which also uses thisreversal.

-- Assign Peter Shafferls The Royal Hunt of the Sun,a play in which the Inca chief, Atahuallpa, triesto convince his Spanish conqueror, Pizarro, thatthe Western ethic of conquest and expansion isdetrimental to life on the planet. Teach/reteachthe theme of criticism before asking students toexplore the Atahuallpa and Pizarro dialogue,contrasting the two positions.

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-- Present the wellintentioned if somewhat misguidedconcept of the noble savage in Western literatureespecially as found in the novels of James FenimoreCooper, the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,or the paintings of George Catlin. Ask studentsto contrast this patronizing attitude with theequally erroneous presentation of Indians in mostmovie Westerns. Direct students to examine theharm to the cultural environment made by stereotypes,either "positive" or "negative."

-- Introduce an episodic play like Arthur Kopit'sIndians as an experiment in readers' theater,assigning roles and allowing practice time beforethe class recreates the drama. Reversing man'strend to turn the sins of the past into future hopes,Kopit wrote "I wished to present a hallucinatorypanorama of the period of time when heroes werebeing created, in which romantic literature wasbeing written to justify and ennoble a very unsavory,violent, and horrible process: the taking of landfrom a people and the destruction of those people inthe belief that they were inferior... The dangerisn't what happened, but the way in which we changedwhat happened into a fable." Have the class testthe dramatist's statement with his play. Studentsmight suggest other examples of the unpalatablemade tolerable.

-- Following the reading of Indian selections, directsmall groups of students to examine tribal legendsfor practices that both humanize and dehumanizepeople. Encourage students to note objectivelya culture's positive and negative features.

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-- After sampling American Indian songs and poemsin an anthology like William Brandonts The MagicWorld, encourage each member of the class tocreate an Indian-style image illustrating manisrespect for some natural phenomenon. Metaphorsmay be grouped around head words like animals,rites, the elements, the seasons, and abstractionssuch as beauty, bravery, magic. Compile theresults as a class project -- multi-media presenta-tion, bulletin board display, booklet.

-- Have students write a news story, feature, oreditorial following a press conference with arepresentative of the Indian community. The visitshould include a sharing of stories, artifacts,customs, and experiences.

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AN ENVIRONMENTAL STRAND: NATURE AND THE CITY


- - Discuss man's search for paradise -- the good life,the perfect dream, utopia -- and its environmentalimplications.

- - Consider that nature has a positive value of its ownbeyond manes utilitarian designs on the environments.

- - Trace man's historical confusion about cities as eitherhumanizing or dehumanizing manmade environments.

- - Explore the Western World's admiration of expansion,conquest, action, status, and ownership as motivatingethics.


-- To provide background for this unit, make availablematerial like The American Wilderness, The City, andMan and NatureTgcholastic Art and Man). Encouragestudent volunteers to develop class presentations.

-- To develop the unit theme of Nature and the City,review that thread in Man and His Environment: In

Harmony and In Conflict. Use a multimedia programlike Man and Earth: the Poet's View countrypoems/city poems, The American Dream: Myth orReality, or The Wisdom of Wilderness to illustratenature's superiority vying with man's determinationto harness her energy for his own ends. Leadstudents into an examination of the ways creativeartists sharpen man's focus by putting conflictsinto perspective.

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-- Assign a work like Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift fromthe Sea, which shows the regenerative power ofnature to restore the human spirit. The author seesthe stages of her life symbolized by various seashorecreatures. Encourage students to select an animalor natural force (monsoon, drought, sandstorm) thatexpresses their individuality as they see themselvesand to write a description. Students might submittheir compositions for class reaction and identifi-cation.

-- Present Thoreau's observation: This curious worldis more wonderful than it is convenient; morebeautiful than it is useful; it is more to beadmired than it is to be used. Have each studentfold a sheet of paper vertically, heading two columns,Aesthetic View of Nature -- Practical View of Nature.Allow ten minutes for students to list and numberitems that fit under either column. Afterwards, theclass may be interested in assessing which column,the aesthetic or practical, received more entriesand what the results suggest about environmentalattitudes.

-- Assign sections of Thoreau's writings. To preparestudents for this original American mind, show oneof the many available multi-media programs likeAn Interview with Henry David Thoreau which illustrateThoreau's farsighted vision about land-use conflicts.Consider the modernity of this nineteenth centuryenvironmentalist.

-- Assign the Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee playThe Night Thoreau Spent in Jail which shows theconsequences to the individual of standing up for a-principle. Get students to offer specific examplesof how they can activate sound environmental programsto save earth, thereby reversing the environmentalcrisis.

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Teach/reteach the writing of the informal essay.Recall this passage from Man and His Environment:In Harmony and In Conflict:

We [Western Man] would say of a man whoscaled Everest, "he conquered the mountain."

The Oriental would say, "the mountain hasgained a new friend."

In the Orient, man has traditionally viewedhimself as a minuscule part in a vast wholeness,the individual as a split second in an eternalcycle which includes all things. Man andnature ale closely intertwined in Easternthought.

In a laboratory setting, direct students to reactin writing to this duality concerning man's relation-ship with environments.

-- Introduce students to nature poets like WilliamWordsworth, Percy Shelley, John Keats, Walt Whitman,and Emily Dickinson. To stimulate aural perception,play selected poems, asking students to visualizethe natural environments as interpreted by thepoet's. Have students verbally react to thisvicarious human interacting.

-- Assign a selection like Paul Gallico's "The SnowGoose" -- short story, radio play, or televisionspecial. Discuss with the class the power of nature,in this case a bird preserve on the marsh, to initiatehuman relationships. Students may also wish toconsider the special environmental flavor dialectbrings to a work.

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-- Assign an expansionist novel like 0. E. ROlvaagisGiants in the Earth, Willa Cather's Death Comes forthe Archbishop, &Antonia, 0 Pioneers, or FrankNorris' The Octopus, each portraying humankind'sstruggle to tame the wilderness, all the timerespecting nature's superiority. Direct studentwriters to choose a favorite character in anexpansionist novel and to simulate a diary of thischaracter's daily encounters with nature on thefrontier.

-- Encourage students to examine the paintings of tworealists like Andrew Wyeth and Edward Hopper, thefirst depicting rural environments and the lattermainly urban settings. Discuss the environmentalstatements each painting suggests to the viewer.Have creative students compose a poem, sensoryimpressions piece, or short story based on a favoritepainting.

-- Conduct a discussion on the subject of the city witheach class member prepared to share a poem, essay,photograph, painting, or song. The group may wish tofocus on the city in general or on one in particularlike Chicago (Carl Sandburg's poem "Chicago,"Norman Mailer's essay "Chicago," Frank Sinatra'srendition of "Chicago," Sinclair Lewis, novel TheJungle, and an interview with architect Allan Temko,"Good Buildings and the Good Life ").

-- If possible, arrange for a viewing of a film likeWest Side Story, A Raisin in the Sun, On the Waterfront,Oliver, Great Expectations, or The OutofTowners inpreparation for an informal discussion on the problemsof the city as treated by the film medium. Considerwhether the treatment of the city is romantic, satiric,or realistic, and conjecture why the director chose aparticular tone.

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-- The ancient Greeks looked at the city as thepinnacle of human activity while Rousseau, Blake,and the Romantics considered the city a blight onthe environment. After examining these contrastingattitudes about the city and the relationship ofattitudes as motivation for behavior, teach/reteachthe theme of persuasion. Direct students to convincetheir readers to accept one or the other positionabout the city.

Teach/reteach.the basic principles of symposiumparticipation. Propose topics such as these forstudent symposiums:

Conservation may be just another form ofman's meddling with nature.

Man's ability to manage, manipulate, and changehis environment works at cross purposes withnature's plan.

Progress, competition, and conquest asexpressions of the expansionist mentalityare doomed to obsolescence.

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AN ENVIIMZEWIAL STRAND: SURVIVAL


- - Discuss how survival necessitates an individual'sreliance on his inner resources.

- - Consider how survival is more a person's dailyinteracting with the environments rather than areacting to.a crisis.

-- Explore varied responses to'the survival test --the thrill of challenge, the fear of contest, thetenacity of enduring, the inertia of non-involvement,or the finality of defeat.


-- The theme of individual survival through self-discipline laces Jack London's fiction. Beforestudents read and discuss London selections of theirchoice, show Jack London, a Life of Adventure asbackground.

- - Illustrating that survival sometimes is a reactionto a crisis, direCt the class to list on the chalk-board situations that demand an heroic responsefor survival (plane crash, war, flood, prison riot).Ask students to select a biography or novel depictingthis survival theme. In oral or written reports,students will relate their books to one of the threePreliminary Discussion statements.

-- To. illustrate the theme of Survival in the wilderness,assign two contemporary poems like Earle Birney's .

"David" or David Wagoner's "Staying Alive," the firstinterpreted by Rene Auberjonois on a recording of SomeHaystacks Don't Even Have &ix Needle. Observe thepoets' focus on the self-testing needed for copingwith wilderness environments.

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-- Direct students to research in a variety ofclassroom dictionaries words associated withsurvival. Consider the subtle shading of wordsand how the connotation of a term often colors aperson's response. Students will suggest examplessuch as coping, interactinE, reacting, surviving,outliving, outlasting, remaining, enduring,persisting, succeeding, crisis, emergency, urgency,exigency, struggle. Draw student attention to theconnotative difference between using the verbal

ending and the noun suffix on words likeinteracting and interaction, persisting andpersistence.

- - Since survival is a recurring theme in popularmusic, ask students to share their favorite recordingsto motivate a discussion on human interaction withenvironments. As a followup activity, assign animpromptu theme that highlights an environmentalstruggle high on students' personal priorities --coping with school, the family, the job, friends,health, the system, oneself.

- - Assign a survival novel like Walkabout and arrange,if possible, a showing of the film by the same title.Explore the contaminating nature of civilizationwhich often destroys the very life that nourishes it.

- - Evaluate the variety of survival situations presentedin a story like Sounder. After reading the WilliamArmstrong novel or viewing the film, students willbe able to articulate the many kinds of strugglesencountered in daily life -- the individualpreserving his self-conicept, the family making aliving, the father providing direction, the childrengetting an education, and the dog battling to live.

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-- Consider the problem of survival for creatures

the society labels worthless. The albatross inSamuel Coleridge's "The Rime of the AncientMariner," the rodent in "The Reason Why," thebuffaloes and boys (labeled dime by the counselor)in Glendon Swarthout's Bless the Beasts and theChildren, and Jews in The 1212.0 of Anne Frankillustrate this threat to life, both animal andhuman.

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PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE


-- Present this Arthur C. Clarke idea believed by

many: Anything that is possible in theory willbe achieved in practice, no matter what thedifficulties, if it is desired greatly enough.

-- Consider the need for each individual to keepabreast of technology so as to be capable ofintelligent input in deciding humankind's future,

-- Note the value of futurist literature in helpingstudents plan for and cope with the future.

Explore the citizen's role in futuring whichsupports a divergence of opinion rather than aconsensus.


- - If possible, introduce this unit by showing Towardthe Year 2000: Can We Survive the Future? Askstudents to record their main impressions on afirst viewing to be shared afterward in small groupdiscussions. Encourage student flexibility inapproaching problems of the future by having themconsider positive, negative, and neutral featuresof future projections.

- - Present Sara Teasdale's "There Will Come Soft Rains,"a lyric reiterating nature's continuity regardlessof man's activity, in this case total genocide throughwar. Play "There Will Come Soft Rains," askingstudents to note Bradbury's use of the poem in hisshort story. Have students jot down examples ofBradbury's personification or technology and discussthe impact of his imagery on the story itself.

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Teach/reteach the writing of definitions. Presentthe term ecc-fiction, asking students to definethe word briefly. Have the class formulate a modeldefinition based on student samples.

-- To concretize the definition of ecofiction, assignan ecofiction selection like Isaac Asimov's "It'sSuch a Beautiful Day" (technological isolation fromnature), Ray Bradburyls "A Sound of Thunder"(upsetting of the cosystem), or Bernie Turnerts"Disposet" (elimination of garbage). Analyze thewriterts use of scientific input fused with creativeimagination.

- - Present the term scenario -- a personal view of thefuture based on a synthesizing of personal historiesof the future. To concretize this method of futureplanning, direct the class to examine the Table ofContents in Alvin Tofflerts Future Shock and hisfifty pages of notes and bibliography. Encourageinterested students of science fiction to design ascenario based on stories that have triggered theirimaginations.

- - Ask students to select a chapter of special interestfrom a supplementary source like Alvin Toffler'sFuture Shock, recommending they work in pairs tofacilitate meaningful discussion. Teach/reteachthe precis before students synthesize their chapterin a writing assignment. Direct students to testtheir themes on their partners as rough drafts forcoherency, comprehension, and consciseness.

-- As a vocabulary session, list on the board somefuture concepts found in a source like AlvinToffleris Future Shock. Such terms as transience,the kinetic image, future shock, anticipatorydemocracy, or evborgs should be defined in class

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discussion as students encounter them in theirreading. Explore why Toffler and many of thefuturists deal in concrete imagery to conveymeaning, also analyzing how metaphor shapesenvironmental interaction.

-- Duplicate Arthur C. Clarke's "Chart of the Future"for creative analysis:

1980 Personal radio1990 Artificial intelligence2000 Global library2010 Telesensory devices2020 Logical languages - Robots2030 Contact with extra-terrestrials2050 Memory playback2060 Mechanical educator - Coding of artifacts2080 Machine intelligence exceeds man's2090 World brain

Have students in small group discussions, conjectureabout Clarke's sequence of communications definingeach breakthrough and suggesting its humanizing anddehumanizing potential. Students should see thatplanning for the future takes creative imaginationtempered by logic and knowledge. Encourage studentsto design a scenario showing natural and manmadeenvironments interacting during any one of thesepoints in time.

-- To illustrate the future of language as communication,have the class consider a variety of activities.Albert Marckwardt's prediction in "The Future ofEnglish" that inflections are on the way out and wordorder will become more fixed can be compared withGeorge Orwell's "The Principles of Newspeak" to testthe views of a linguist and a novelist. The BellTelephone Company has several free films to orientstudents on future communications systems. Selectedchapters from Marshall McLuhan's books can be assignedto students wanting to pursue this subject.

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TOWARD A MORE PERSONALIZED LIFE -STYLE


-- Discuss the need for personal involvement inenvironmental issues to make living more meaningful.

-- Analyze the wide gamut of individual response tothe environments, providing options for human input.

Stress the exploratory nature of this electivewhich presents students with some environmentalissues but does not presume to solve the environmental crisis.

Swested Activities

-- As a focal point of this unit, send students tocontemporary sources to find poems that illustratethe seven themes of this elective. Encourage acommittee to prepare a multimedia program, interpreting these poems as a unifying thread. Anexceptional program could be shared with otherclasses.

-- Make available short stories that show the rangeof lifestyles operating around the world today.Discussion should focus on the individual's selfconcept interacting with the environments.

-- To illustrate the power of individuals to initiatelegal action in an environmental crisis, show adocumentary like Before the Mountain Was Moved,outlining the plight of impoverished West Virginiansdisplaced by stripmining. Consider the process ofcommunity planning, ranging from the identificationof the problem to its solution through citizen,'action.

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-- To establish the danger of accepting at face valuethe language of ecology, assign the reading ofThomas Turner's "How to Spot an Ecological Phony."Direct students to bring examples of advertisementsthat illustrate Turner's five categories, withoffenses to the environment clearly noted. Somemembers of the class may prefer to bring examplesemploying the standard propaganda devices. Toencourage consumer responsibility, suggest that acommittee forward the results in letters to offend-ing advertisers.

-- Show "We Can Make It Happen," a film made locallyin Milwaukee by students and teachers in the --

Milwaukee Public Schools. Encourage students todesign similar projects of a multi-media naturethat will present the problems of the environmentsin some creative way.

-- To demonstrate the value of doing, introduce anactivity like The Propaganda Game. Designed fortwo to four players, the game provides expertisein recognizing the positive and negative techniquesof propaganda -- self-deception, language;irrelevance, exploitation, form, and maneuver.Have the class evaluate the volunteer-players'skill in handling propaganda.

-- Present the Milwaukee Public Schools' secondaryurban field trip guide and plan with the class anagenda which highlights the unit topics of thiselective. Stress the need for students andteacher to act as resource persons by choosingmeaningful pre-, on-, and post-trip suggestionsfrom among the multi-disciplinary activities.

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-- Have students research environmental action that theindividual can take. Suggest sources such as "TheEQ Index," Joan Roloff's and Robert Wylder's ThereIs No "Away ", or Douglas LaFollettels WisconsinSurvival Handbook. Encourage students to designtheir personalized checklist, charting and evaluatinginvolvement with environmental issues.

-- Encourage the class to launch a public relationscampaign on some environmental issue important.totheir school via public address announcements,posters, and newspaper articles. Teach/reteachthe basics of persuasion.

-- Encourage student participation in their school'secology club by inviting a member of that group toexplain its environmental activities to the class.To insure a meaningful dialogue, prepare the classbeforehand to devise discussion issues stressingways students might improve the school environmentfor better interaction. A press conference makesan effective format.

As a culminating activity of this elective, havestudents write a letter to a teenager living in 2001.The letter should reflect the student's personalunderstanding of environmental issues and his involvement in solutions to insure a future. Remind studentsthat by 2001 they will be middleaged citizens onthe other side of the generation gap who will have toanswer for the state of earth.

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