Name______Period_____ Due Date______
Seminar Questions: Place
Creative Writing
Texts:
“The Place Where You Live,” Orion Magazine
Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey
West with the Night, Beryl Markham
The Place Where You Live
1. (a) Where is your favorite location to read of in your “The Place Where You Live”? (b) Why do you especially enjoy this piece? Integrate a quote in your response.
2. (a) Are there characters mentioned in this piece? (b) Is there a narrative or story told? (c) Are there sensory details? Give an example of something that is rich in detail.
3. (a) Quote one line in this piece that speaks to you. (b) As a reader, how does this create or affect your experience of imagining this place? (c) Identify any familiar technique used by the author (e.g. Figurative Language Technique)
Desert Solitaire
4. (a) Who are the characters within these chapters of Desert Solitaire? Give a line that characterizes them. (c) Does Abbey prioritize either the place or the characters over the other? (d) How does Abbey utilize one (characters or place) to enhance his description of the other? Cite textual evidence.
5. Abbey suggests that he wishes to avoid personification in his nature writing, “The personification of the natural is exactly the tendency I wish to suppress in myself, to eliminate for good… I want to be able to look at and into a juniper tree, a piece of quartz, a vulture, a spider, and see it as it is in itself, devoid of all humanly ascribed qualities” (Abbey 7). (a) Does Abbey uphold this ideal in his writing? Is Abbey being ironic? (b) Do you agree that nature writing should be free of personification?
West with the Night
6. (a) Select a story within WWTN and describe the place in which it is set. List adjectives and sensory detail in your description. (b) Describe Markham’s general tone when speaking of this place. That is, how does Markham feel about this place?
7. Markham has a knack for using figurative language in just the right amounts and in just the right ways. (a) Reference and define one instance of Markham using figurative language. (b) Rewrite this sentence in the most literal way possible. (c) How has the effect of this line been changed, if at all?
8. (a) Give one quote from your own writing while on our Sensory Detail Tour of campus that is rich in sensory detail, and specify which senses this quote appeals to. (b) Give quote from your writing that uses figurative language, and identify type(s) of figurative language used.
9: (a) Select one line from any literature outside of class that offers a rich description of a place, and quote it here. (b) What story is this from, what is the place, and what key words help create a full image of it?
Bonus: Go to wta.org and select a hike – any hike. Read its trail description details. Select a passage and rewrite it: Add yourself into the scene as a character experiencing this place.