ENST 101 - The Art of Reading and Writing

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

(Same as ENGL 101) Topic for 2015/16a: Thoreau in His Time and Ours. Henry David Thoreau’s influence on American environmental thought, political ideas, and literary culture is enduring. The course examines some of his own writings, including Walden, Essay on Civil Disobedience, excerpts from his Indian Notebooks, and from his lifelong Journal. We will also read and write about twenty-first-century works in his tradition, including Cheryl Strayed’s book Wild (and the recent film made from it), as well as some contemporary journalism. Twentieth-century writers could include John Muir, John Burroughs (with a field trip to his nearby retreat Slabsides), Ernest Hemingway, Annie Dillard, and Gary Snyder. Photography and landscape painting influenced by Thoreau will also be considered. Thoreau himself was a great prose stylist, and can provide a model for our own writing, including journal writing. Mr. Peck.

Open only to freshmen; satisfies the college requirement for a Freshman Writing Seminar.

Two 75-minute periods.