10B Ecology Assignment #3

Warren 10B: Ecology
Rachel D. Shaw’s Sections

Writing Assignment #3
(6-8 pages)
Due February 12, 1998

Outline Due February 5, 1998
(Conference Week)

As before, your paper should be organized around some specific and relevant theme or claim -- it should not be a list of answers to the questions in the prompts. Work on keeping a strong focus throughout the paper. At the same time, however, be aware of the larger context and implications of the claims that you are making. Ask yourself, “What is at stake?”

PURPOSE: To develop your skills as an analytical and creative writer. To explore how different writers can inform each other in a shared debate. To learn how to engage with other ecological writers and add your own voice to the conversation on ecological issues.

Over the course of the quarter, you have encountered and explored a number of different ecological issues and positions. For this paper, you will draw upon this knowledge and experience to formulate a critique of the fictional work, Ecotopia. However, this paper should be more than a critique for critique’s sake. Your argument should contain a sense of why such a critique or revision is necessary. What can you contribute to the conversation on ecology in the world today? You may approach this in one of two ways:

A) You can do a formal critique of Callenbach’s work, treating it as you would any other work you have encountered.

B) You can re-write part of Ecotopia to better reflect what you feel needs to be removed, amended, or simply left as is.

In either case, you need to place Ecotopia and your argument about it in a conversation with the other writers of the course. These writers can provide you with concrete information on a number of ecological topics raised by Callenbach. They can offer perspectives by which to judge the effectiveness of his arguments, his approach, etc. They can help you see what he ignores, or chooses to leave out, or they might reinforce some of the claims he makes. It might also happen that Callenbach’s work has something to say about or to these other writers and their arguments.

If you choose option (a) incorporating these other materials should be fairly straightforward. Simply introduce and cite your sources as usual.
If you choose option (b), it will be somewhat more difficult. I recommend that for every alteration you make in your revision of Ecotopia, you provide a footnote indicating where the new information came from. If you choose to leave some things the same because you found support for them elsewhere, you should again footnote your sources. Stylistic changes, of course, don’t need citation.

Again, in either case, you will need to decide whether your argument can be made more effectively by analyzing the book as a whole, or a particular “article” by Weston, or Weston’s diary entries. You might also decide to focus on a particular aspect of Ecotopia, such as culture, gender, race, technology, waste, foreign relations, etc., but this is not mandatory. Your warrant for picking a certain topic or part(s) should be made clear in your paper.

If you choose option (a), this would be, again, straightforward, as you have had practice introducing your intentions to the reader directly.
If you choose option (b), you might have to be a bit more clever. Remember, there is an implicit argument in deciding to re-write something. You want the reader, upon finishing your paper, to understand the point you were trying to make. A brief introductory section before the re-written passage might be useful.