English 101: Shaping Experience Through Language: Coming to Terms with Place

Essay of Place

Complete Draft Due Monday, September 30th

Final Draft Due Monday, October 7th

"There are things you just can't do in life.  You can't beat the phone company. . . and you can't go home again."

                    -- Bill Bryson

Definition: The essay of place, on its most basic level, harnesses description and narration to create a vivid image of an environment.  What seems more interesting is that the act of writing about a place will forward assumptions (both social and cultural) about how the writer sees that environment, and we will be examining how place is shaped in essays by Kyoko Mori, Ka'ula Rowe, and Barbara Kingsolver.

Purpose: One of the underlying assumptions of this course is that effective writing (even academic writing) begins with knowledge of the self.  The progression of this course reflects this assumption.  In continually moving towards argument, the mode of discourse most commonly used to create and explore knowledge in higher education, we are moving from exploring the self to examining aspects outside the self.  This essay does both.

"Where are you from?"  This question invariably arises when two Americans meet for the first time especially when traveling.  "I'm from the South."  "I'm from L.A."  "I'm from Carey, Idaho."  Place is a fundamental component of everyday life, the where that locates each event and experience in our lives.  This essay allows you to explore the places buildings, landscapes, landmarks, people that shape who we are. 

But Annie Dillard says that "Seeing is of course very much a matter of verbalization."  As we have  seen (the two descriptions o the Yucca tribe, for example), making sense of place is the act of shaping and defining the reality of that place, and how a writer writes about a place tells the reader more about the writer than the place being described.  

Directions: Place has so many different meanings; therefore, several alternatives for approaching this essay have been provided:

     1.   Describe a place important to your past.  This place can be anything from your hometown to your backyard or the countryside you explored as a child.  Do not feel as if you have to limit the definition of important to something positive or "warm and fuzzy"; often, a place that holds an element of pain for us is important in shaping who we are.

     2.   You may want to explore an environment close to you now.  For example, this essay could develop into an exploration of the differences between high school and college.  Go to this place--a restaurant, a grocery store, your History class--and take notes concerning what you experience.  Recreate this environment in as much vivid detail as you can.

     3.   Jerry Brown, a former governor of California and now mayor of Oakland, California, makes the following distinction between place and space: "People don't live in place, they live in space.  The media used to accuse me of that living in space.  But it wasn't true.  Now too many people just live in their minds, not in communities."  Brown makes the argument that place (ie. physical location) no longer exists or, at least, does not have the same meaning.  Feel free to describe a space rather than place, which includes environments of the mind , environments created by television, film, or song, and online environments.

Grading Criteria: Remember that you are not only describing a place but shaping and making sense of this place.  Because you will be forwarding an argument or view of this place, this essay will have a thesis, and you will be evaluated upon how effectively your description and narration develops and supports this thesis.  This essay should also be carefully edited and proofread, paying close attention to formal errors.

Length: 4-5 pages (1,000-1,500 words)

Format: Typed; Double-Spaced; Times New Roman; 12-Point Font

For the Writing Workshop (9/30), please bring two copies of your essay to class.

              "We see things as we are, not as they are."

                                         Jennifer Stone

Download an RTF version of Essays of Place