The length of your essay should be from 750-800 words. I’ll expect it to be double-spaced, well organized, and proof-read. Please don’t bother with anything but the briefest of intros and conclusions.
The paper requires you to prepare with the following:
Discuss works in terms of the specific guidance they offer the reader about climate crisis, guidance both practical and ethical, in answer to the question, “What can I do?” (Moodle, week 11)
Be aware that a final exam requires more than highly generalized or all-purpose “platitudes” about your subject matter. Rather, your work should reflect your detailed understanding of it, with insights tied to specific features or aspects of the works. So carefully review each writer’s specific portrait of a biosphere under threat.
You should carefully consider each literary work we’ve studied in terms of how it instructs the reader, either about specific, concrete things people can/should do, or, perhaps equally important, in terms of particular attitudes, or principles. Recall that these can be read as cautionary tales. They don’t only warn us, though; to be a good story, they must offer something more. What do they offer? Look at characters and conflicts for what they suggest about behaviour, principles, choices.
You’ll be asked to discuss all of the following, and in whatever proportion you deem best suits the prompt you’ve chosen. If you consider the length requirement here, and the need to discuss all the works below, you should get a sense of what level of detail you can afford to bring into the discussion. You’ll need to get the heart of the matter in each case.
The Mercy Journals
“The Tamarisk Hunter”
Princess Mononoke
Autonomous
“Zoogoing”
Students might consider the question, “What can I do” in the following ways:
- The question “What can I do?” applies to you, as an individual, today, but by implication, what “we,” can do. You can state your response either way or both ways.
- The question “What can I do?” means, for the environment. (eg, “run and hide” is not the correct response! Likewise, “every person for themselves” is also not what I have in mind! J
- Answers to “What can I do” can include specific actions, ways of acting, and ways of thinking.
