The final piece of writing is a critical reflection about your work that uses the ideas and texts in the course to support, and highlight, your ideas.

This piece will also be published in SCALAR for future use; that is, the final piece should say something about how you've encountered the material in the course so as to instruct future users/readers. Your writing—your readings of the texts; your telling of your experience with ideas—will be great guides for students.

Think broadly, first. Ruminate on the following and record it for yourselves somewhere (I use a black notebook for this and write longhand; no technology, other than a Sharpie, for thinking—that works best for me):

Explain and describe what the texts help you see and understand, even if this means further confusion, or the creation of more questions that are yet unanswerable for you. Here, begin to not rely on invisibility and slow violence; think beyond these very large themes.

How have these texts helped you delve deeper into the questions of environmental justice—and expanding the meaning, on confusing it, making it, perhaps, more nuanced?

How does environmental justice affect your view of what you need to examine about your goals going forward?

This preamble, the questions, should be seen as lofty goals to guide your thinking and your writing. More specific "how-to" is below.

The GOAL of this piece is to describe, discuss, and even argue ideas that will flow smoothly into an answer to the following question: Knowing what you know now, how are you going to approach the rest of your life?

This question doesn't have a definitive answer; it's about perspective, point of view, attitude. It's also about responsibility — the ability to respond: where will you find the space(s) necessary to give yourself enough time to respond to what comes your way—unexpectedly? how do you do this? how will your education help, with examples, referring to texts, in this course and others you've encountered, that have affected the way you think? after summarizing the texts in this course, which singular text, which one of these, is something you know you'll take with you, meaning you know that it has affected you and the ideas found in this text are important guides? how does this text help you see yourself better?

I taught an FYS back in the fall of 2015 and the class had a similar assignment. Students asked that I too write the assignment and provide a model. You guys didn't take this course, but I'm sharing with you what I wrote (since published) (Links to an external site.) so that you can see a model for the work I'm asking you to do. Notice how I contextualize the texts, give the reading of each I need for my argument/description, and use this to describe a native characteristic of American culture. I'm not asking that you be as lengthy. I'm not expecting this sort of reading of American culture; these courses are different. I'm basically wanting to know what it is you see now that the course is over, or nearly over. This model (linked) is simply a sketch for you, and an outline that allows you to see a way into the work, and a way through—a way to organize.

I want you to be creative about your approach. You can tell a story and use the texts, for instance. You can use your experiences as a way through this and use the texts. And so on ...

I have created a SCALAR PAGE (Links to an external site.) for each of you.

I want you to consider following these guidelines for writing:

Go back to your mapping exercise: How did your plan turn out? Where are you now? [this is something we will have already spoken about in our f2f meetings, so you want to have notes from that]. This shouldn't be written, When I look at my mapping...or I said in my mapping that ... Rather, it should be something along the lines of, My writing interests in this course suggest (ideas + support from essays) ... or A central focus of my essays (or thinking) has been ... (examples)...or Engaging the texts in this course, I started to think about ... (examples) ... I thought ... and now I'm thinking that ... (examples)  — This section should be short (no more than a tight paragraph) and strategically placed.
As preparation for writing, without looking at the texts, just referring to their titles for inspiration, see what you recall: write out a paragraph or so about each text encountered in the course—this is for your own use and a way to organize before writing; this is done to determine what you recall, which is important and what you should focus on because that's instinct talking; eventually open the texts to make sure you have examples for citing [any material from outside the syllabus you wish to cite is fine, too, especially since I've sent you a lot of reading from the popular media].
Find a central idea or theme you want to explore. Set it down somewhere so you can see it and read it back to yourself. Yes, there will be the tendency to speak about invisibility and slow violence, I get that; however, these should be ideas that help illustrate a central idea or theme that's your very own and based on what your reading of the courses' texts tells you about the nature of society, as it is now, the challenges we face, and, definitely, where you're situated, in the texts and the challenges we face. Thus, invisibility and slow violence should not be the central ideas/themes of your work, rather instruments/conditions/truths you found along the way and you're using these to pry open a deeper, richer understanding of your relationship to these ideas and environmental justice.
Write a draft and start sharing it with your group. Likewise, you want to make sure that you and I sit with your piece, letting me comment on it before it's due  (even numerous times) so that we have the piece you want. You definitely want to conference with me about your piece so I can help you get as deep as possible into the subject—in other words: making sure each of you writes something you're really moved by and proud of.
Since this is on SCALAR, make sure you have relevant images, links, where appropriate and necessary, and any other media (clips, sound, etc), you may wish to insert creatively to lift your piece.

Final Writing Assignment

Read bell hooks's Teaching to Transgress.

What is an "engaged pedagogy" and its relation to "teaching to transgress"? What happens when you place Greene and hooks together? What are these authors saying about teaching and learning—and this course?

Read Maxine Greene's Critical Pedagogy.

What is Greene suggestion about how we must engage each other, texts, study? What is "critical pedagogy"? And why is Greene's essay relevant for this course?

JSTOR Book Review of Dumping in Dixie

• Rob Nixon speaking on Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor.
• Slow Violence by Rob Nixon (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
• Environmentalist and writer Sunita Narain talks about the environmentalism of the poor and shares ideas on how to reinvent growth that is affordable, sustainable, and inclusive.

Here's how to read Slow Violence ... online via JSTOR

Indra Sinha on Animal's People and his next book

Some 30 years after the publication of The End of Nature, McKibben reflects following the publication of Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?

Social Justice in the Open World (United Nations)

Writing Reflection:

Take a moment, look around:

• Where do you see evidence of an imbalance of power?
• Where is there evidence of injustice?

Write at least a few paragraphs, even a page describing these imbalances, evidence of injustice and give examples.

• How does this evidence make you feel?

The two arguments of Heart of Darkness: can you add another? And maybe another vision not thought of here?

Written between 1944 and 1947, Minima Moralia is a collection of rich, lucid aphorisms and essays about life in modern capitalist society. Adorno casts his penetrating eye across society in mid-century America and finds a life deformed by capitalism. This is Adorno's theoretical and literary masterpiece and a classic of twentieth-century thought.

Minima Moralia, the text

Some Writing Portfolio Resources:

Principles and Practices of in Electronic Porfolios

The Benefits of E-Portfolios for Students and Faculty in Their Own Words

Some Contract Grading Resources:

Grading Contract Success, At Last, At Last

I Have Seen the Glories of Contract Grading

How I Contract Grade

Here's Writing Assignment 1, the first leg of a building block moving students towards the personal as academic argument.

This assignment comes fairly early in the semester, but we lead into it with in-class writing focused on the readings. The week prior to the assignment's due date is spent workshopping/peer editing of drafts. (Sample of Workshop Guiding Questions for Review.) We follow this pattern for all essays, as well as for the Scalar work, the creation of a course book (explained further in the process).

Here are 3 elegant examples of the first writing assignment, each interesting, each powerful:

Environmentalism: The New and The Old by Kate Holly

Drought Stricken by Emma Cardwell

Intersectionality of Being Black by Destini Armstrong

• Really, in just about any discipline, I think, we can ask these same set of questions/prompts so students can begin to understand where they locate themselves in a given subject.

What might you ask your students? What would you do, say in day 1 or 2, to understand where students are with respect to the subject of your course?

This moves students to the questions/prompts for Writing Assignment 2, moving ever closer to the personal as academic argument.

Before Writing Assignment 2, students do a Mapping exercise.

...and we go through the same process: 2 classes of workshopping/peer editing.

NOTE: Writing Assignment 2, all the work, was to happen the week we were, instead, asked to leave campus. Writing Assignment 2 will take place virtually. The essays will still be peer edited and reviewed.

Here it is ... The most important thing here, in keeping with the ellipsis pedagogical model, is how assignment 2 capitalizes on the students' previous work. This is how I capitalize on the constructivism as a paradigm for learning with writing.

I owe much of my thinking, here, to the New York City Writing Project, Lehman College, the Bronx, where in the early nineties I was a member. The experience has remained with me and informed a lot of what I do with writing and teaching.

Here it is...This is a more reflective, philosophical piece, a change that asks student to ask themselves a final question: Knowing what you know now, how are you going to approach the rest of your life? This question doesn't have a definitive answer; it's about perspective, point of view, attitude. But is is how, with writing, you can open the ellipsis a bit further—and another example of constructivism.

Here's the Discussion that mirrors the group presentations.

I've done this like this because each group will then find it easier to translate their respective work to the Scalar course textbook being created. This is not a one-by discussion; it leads to future work a bit later in this long, difficult section of the course.

Nothing is wasted; each assignment reaches back to what we have accomplished and learned, moving forward towards new, yet untried horizons. It's how the ellipsis pedagogical model works.

In another context, composition and rhetoric, for instance, Lisa Delpit speaks about "the triangle" as her pedagogical metaphor: at the top, students, lower right, texts, and lower left, the teacher; the energy of the teaching is to keep the lines of the triangle flowing back and forth. In the center of the triangle resides possibility.

I thought quite a bit about this model while re-constructing these course sites.

What other pedagogical strategies are there that can help in the construction of an online experience?

Announcement. Notice that I re-iterate what appears in the new online syllabus' first panel, in a different tone and style, and I provide a "Welcome" movie, as well as a Vice News story about a classmate, Middlebury College Junior, Megan Job.

These are ways of bringing greater intimacy at a distance.

What other ways do we have to bring students at a distance closer together?

At the very least I am keeping one day, Tuesday, of my new schedule for synchronous class time. On 3/31, I am meeting with both classes. And starting on Monday, 3/30, I have an average of 4 individual student meetings. Students automatically set their own meeting times, based on my available, posted hrs, using Schedule Once. Suffice to say, week one of the second half of the semester is my Zoom week.

As we move through the term, the official set time for my courses will be used for either entire class meetings or group meetings (since students on working in groups on projects).

The question for teachers is this: how to we take the temperature of the class working online, whether synchronously or asynchronously? In the physical class, a teacher picks up energy and is able to inquire and change directions. Online, especially asynchronously, how is this done? Does distance learning, fashioned for an elite, residential college, require more f2f meetings with individual students, more "office hrs" ?

Here is what follows this section of the syllabus. I place it here so as to not take up reading space. It shows a very traditional syllabus, when things are due, and assignments.

Here is another example, The Look and Feel of the Course. I place it here to give a sense of continuity and to emphasize how incredibly well this in-class reading of the syllabus, on day 1, helped in the beginning stages in a course when a professor is working diligently to build community.

Can this be done online? Well, I hope to show that it can when you view my introduction to the Online/Distance Learning syllabus for the second half of the course.

Argument and Evidence in the Case of the Personal, Candace Spigelman, College English Vol. 64, No. 1 (Sep., 2001), pp. 63-87 (25 pages)

An interesting take on Weltschemerz

The New York Times Editorial Board wrote an excellent Opinion, Locked Out of the Virtual Classroom

"Internet-savvy school systems that serve connected populations appear to be moving ahead relatively smoothly with the new order of business. At the same time, some districts that lack infrastructure and serve heavily poor populations have given up altogether on remote learning. Still others are hesitant to pursue online instruction out of fear they might be hauled into court for offering course materials to which broadband-deprived families cannot gain access."

Here are some helpful ideas from Pearson:

• 9 Strategies for effective online teaching
• Teaching Online Without LMS

Here are a couple of more sources focused on group work:

Designing Effective Team Projects in Online Course

Tips for Participating in Group Work & Projects Online

A useful site is the History of Online Education, which covers from 1900 to the present, with interesting insights into the future.

There is also The Evolution of Online Learning and the Revolution in Higher Education. This piece may raise questions for us about the traditional liberal arts, residential experience: how long should residency be? are there other possibilities, different models that capitalize on community, while also developing other areas for further, life-long learning?

Way back in 2008, I was the only Humanist invited by MIT to their OpenIWorld: Europe 2008 Conference in Lyon, France. I delivered a talk titled, The Location of Technology, a Theory of the Present, which sort of outlines why we may find ourselves in this precarious situation of trying to learn technologies in a rush.

Weighing the Balance of Power by Stanley Hoffmann, available via JStor.

(Middlebury College students, faculty, and staff can access JStor articles, and more, via the Library. From outside the college, EZProxy can be used.)

Additional Resources

* The higher the inequality, the more likely we are to move away from democracy

• The costs of inequality: Increasingly, it’s the rich and the rest;