ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the course texts and methodology used to teach a class on animals in environmental literature. Using texts from twentieth-century American literature, the course uses both close reading and field experiences to bring student awareness of how animals are written about in literature, observed, and how contemporary readers seek to experience wildlife. The driving purpose of this course is to interrogate an animal discourse for usage in both literature and in real life animal advocacy, research, and experiences. By using some of the most notable environmental texts in American history, students come to understand how great environmental minds viewed animals, what they actually wrote about them, and how important experiential knowledge is for students as they delve into environmental theory, activism, and texts. Experiential field writing assignments are part of this course’s central learning tool. Students are required to observe, undistracted, in an open space or wilderness area, and write what they encounter, see, hear, and sense.
