Some Casey Property Photos

Photographs courtesy of Gen.

Casey Land Proposal Project

Last fall, a 1946 ISU engineering graduate donated 76 acres to the ISU Creative Writing Department. The land, valued at $201,000, was donated to the university by Everett Casey of Detroit, Michigan. He asked that the land be preserved in its natural state. Casey took a writing class at Iowa State that he credits as being fundamental to what he later did as a Detroit-area attorney and owner of a manufacturing company.

For your next assignment, we’re inviting you to visit the Everett Casey Nature Reserve. You will work in groups to research either the history of the land or the ecology of the land or possible uses for the land. By the end of this unit you will present us with either an analysis of the land or a plan for its use. Your Casey Land “Almanac” will consist of a map that you’ve created, a visual, and either a four page paper or a website. The final week of class we will be presenting these almanac projects in the large lecture classroom.

In order to give you more direction, Steve, Brenna, and I have broken up the assignment into six different focus groups. I provided several questions for each category in order to get you started but do not limit yourself to these prompts.

1-CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)-If we were to set up a CSA on the Casey Land site what steps would we take? What considerations would we have to take into account? How could we fund a CSA project? How could it benefit the creative writing program and the community?

2-Habitat Management-What species do you see on the land and how can we most effectively create a fruitful habitat for those species? Do you notice any invasive plant or animal species? What is the best way to moderate the plant and/or animal life on the property?

3-Prairie Restoration-If we were to restore part of the land to native prairie, what steps would we take? How would we fund the restoration of the prairie? What groups would we contact? What are some of the benefits of a prairie restoration project?

4-History-For this category I want you to examine some of the natural and human history of the land. What has happened on the land so far? Your final project would be a website rather than a proposal paper.

5-Creek Management-What plant or animal species do you see in the creek? How can we provide an effective habitat for them? What impact have humans had on the creek? How can we manage erosion and other effects of having water on the land?

6-Outdoor Classroom-How could the land be used as an outdoor learning space? What aspects of the land would you want to include in some sort of outdoor classroom? How would you go about creating a learning space on the land?


Links of Interest:

http://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2009/sep/MFApreserve
http://www.foundation.iastate.edu/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8443
http://blogs.universitybusiness.com/2009/10/university-nature-preserves-inspire-students.html


On Saturday:

Meet at transportation hub behind stadium at 10 am. Free parking. You MUST ride with us. Because it is private property, you CANNOT be there without Eng. Dept. faculty.

Feel free to bring food and water, but do not take it out of the parking lot.

You'll be led around according to which topic you choose.

Wear old jeans, shoes, shirts. Stuff you won't mind getting dirty. Come prepared for rain. Check the weather beforehand.

Bring a camera. One person should bring a field guide.

Casey Land Groups

If you were absent and are not assigned to a group, please let me know prior to Saturday's field trip.


Group 1-Prairie Restoration/Habitat Management:

-Molly Heintz
-Yaheng Chen
-Shawn Seaton
-Emily Swaim
-Lauren Halbert

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Group 2-Prairie Restoration:

-Emma Broadnax
-Alex Frisvold
-Dani De Bruin
-Alex Bales
-Alison Metzger

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Group 3-Habitat Management:

-Ted Mathews
-Jordan Euson
-Sarah Craig
-Michael Gloss
-Austin Jay Godfrey

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Group 4-Outdoor Classroom

-Nicole Hanninen
-Chris Cozzi
-Erik Gerver
-Sara Adelman

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Group 5-Prairie Restoration

-Sara Hill
-Liza Jaszczak
-Matt Johnson
-Thomas Yung

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Class Today

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/402/save-the-day

Symbols--in English class we spend a lot of time talking about rhetorical devices and rhetorical strategies--symbols, metaphors, imagery, ext. However, we spend very little time talking about the larger social and political implications of these seemingly stylistic decisions.

I wanted to share a seemingly "symbolic" structure that I encountered over break--and talk about the implications of its "metaphorical" significance.

The "Birwood Wall" was built in the 1940s to separate white and black neighborhoods. It still stands near 8 Mile and Wyoming.

Recently there's been a movement to "re-claim" the Birwood Wall to give the neighborhood's residents more ownership and agency in their community. The Motor City Blight Busters and artist Chazz Miller banned together to turn something negative into something positive.

Questions: How could such a structure function as both a negative and positive symbol? What visual/rhetorical decisions do you notice Miller making in his reclamation of the wall?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vXSJhiH0wk&feature=channel

Schedule Changes

3/22 Tuesday:

Song: Matthew Johnson
Overview of the rest of the semester
Rough Draft, Rhetorical Analysis Due
Buffalo for the Broken Heart 3-68 (Michael Gloss)

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3/24 Thursday:

Song: Theodore Mathews
Talk about Casey Land Field Trip
Buffalo for the Broken Heart 69-124 (Erik Gerver)

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3/27 Saturday:

Field Trip: Everett Casey Nature Reserve 10am-2pm

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3/29 Tuesday:

No Class
(Due to the weekend's field trip)
Finish Buffalo for the Broken Heart by Thursday, write a 1 page journal response to the reading

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4/1: Thursday

Hoover Classroom
Song: Alison Metzger
Final Draft Rhetorical Analysis Due
Be prepared to do to a brief (informal) presentation of your group's experience on the Casey Property

Don't Forget

Our field trip to the Everett Casey Nature Preserve is this upcoming Saturday. Attendance is Mandatory. It should be a great capstone to some of the semester's environmental exploration.

“Smokey the Bear Sutra,” by Gary Snyder, p. 473 (Lauren Halbert) (Journal)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH-0WLiNLQM

Song: Sara Hill, Molly Heintz

When we analyzed film, we talked about light, color, chunking, and imagery.

When we talk about writing we often talk in terms about rhetorical devices--such as repetition, imagery, metaphor, structure, voice, tone, ext.

Activity 1:

Get with a partner and share your photos/blogs from last Thursday.

What does the image do that the writing cannot do? What does the writing do that the image cannot?

How would you describe their image to someone who hadn't seen it? How would you describe the writing to someone who hadn't read it? Imagine your partner is a writer or photographer and you are reviewing his or her work. Write a brief response under the comment section of his or her blog.

Activity 2:

Examine the reading for today--how would you answer the following questions for Gary Snyder's essay? How would you connect the answers to your question to the author's thesis or claim?

Questions to Consider:

Group 1: What is the rhetorical situation?

• What occasion gives rise to the need or opportunity for persuasion?

• What is the historical occasion that would give rise to the composition of this text?

Group 2: Who is the author/speaker?

• How does he or she establish ethos (personal credibility)?

• Does he/she come across as knowledgeable? fair?

• What is his/her intention in speaking? To attack or defend? To exhort or dissuade from certain action? To praise or blame? To teach, to delight, or to persuade?

Group 3: Who make up the audience?

• Who is the intended audience?

• What values does the audience hold that the author or speaker appeals to?

• Who have been or might be secondary audiences?

Group 4: What is the form in which it is conveyed?

• What is the structure of the communication; how is it arranged?

• What kind of style and tone is used and for what purpose?

Group 5: How do form and content correspond?

• Does the form complement the content?

• What effect could the form have, and does this aid or hinder the author's intention?

Group 6: Does the message/speech/text succeed in fulfilling the author's or speaker's intentions?

• For whom?

• Does the author/speaker effectively fit his/her message to the circumstances, times, and audience?

• Can you identify the responses of historical or contemporary audiences?