2. Write a Question at Issue for the Whole Prologue

Wilson’s Prologue

CRTW 201

Dr. Fike

This handout is an example of what you might do in your small groups. Remember that your job is to get your classmates to use the elements.

1.  Read out loud (twice) the first paragraph of the Prologue to Henry. What questions and implications arise from it? Write in your notebooks à discuss as a whole class.

2.  Write a question at issue for the whole prologue.

3.  Page xxiii: What is the basic problem that is causing the environmental crisis (two concepts).

4.  Page xiii: What is Wilson’s purpose in the prologue? Is this also the purpose of the whole book?

5.  Page 22: What is the book’s question at issue?

6.  What key concept explains why Wilson is writing to Thoreau? For the answer see pages xi, xix, xx, xxii, and 144. What is the definition of that concept?

7.  Dr. Fike’s remarks on point of view regarding The Future of Life and The Creation: An Appeal to Life on Earth.

8.  Identify the key concepts on the following pages: xiv, xvi, xxi, xxii (2), xxiii (5).

9.  What solutions (conclusions) does Wilson propose? See pages xxiii-xxiv.

10.  What are Wilson’s points of view in the Prologue? See xii, xxii, xxiii. What details on xix suggest that he might be a bit radical, and does that implication endure?

11.  What assumptions does Wilson make about “the general human condition” (xi)? See xxi-xxii.

12.  Group activity: Divide the quotations on the other handout into four groups. Then each group does a T-chart to distinguish what Thoreau favors and what he opposes. You might also think of the categories as conservation versus its opposite. When you finish, ask yourselves this question: do the quotations clarify your understanding of why Wilson writes the prologue as a letter to Thoreau?