These are probably scenes they know from people of their age and experience. We lurk around the ASLE list, where people interested in nature writing from all over the world talk about books and places. This spring I am arranging e-mail connections with two other classes in nature writing, one at a Colorado College, where students will focus on writing about the Colorado environment, and one at Ohio State on women nature writers. We will read some of the same essays and exchange our responses. We'll compare differences in writing about Virginia with writing about Colorado, and we will debate Ohioans about whether being a woman makes a difference when you are writing nature.
Style is just as important as rhetoric for nature writing.
My students do often write of shared places and experiences, especially those that they may share in person. By sharing their writings on this place, they soon learn much about stylistic possibilities and differences, all without my having to say a word about style. We also do a lot of electronic chatting about the nature works that we read, discussing how they affect us as readers and what we can learn from them as writers. One of the major problems for beginning writers is feeling that they HAVE a voice, that they have something worth writing. By discussing these writings and seeing their discussions drawn together, they soon learn just how valuable their own insights are.