Teaching Landscape Writing: Interdisciplinary Approaches & Innovations

MMU CheshireTuesday, 8 April 2014

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#healandscape• End of the day

Interdisciplinary Approaches to Landscape Writing

• David Cooper (English Literature)

• Paul Knowles (Senior Lecturer in Outdoor Studies)

1) What we teach . . .

• How, when designing and developing curricula, might we define ‘landscape writing’?• How might we strike a balance between creative and theoretical reading?• Will the module focus on a particular period or periods of literary history?• To what extent will the module engage with material from outside the discipline? E.g. recent and current work in cultural geography.

2) How we teach . . .

• What modes of delivery work best when teaching landscape writing? •How can we learn from colleagues from within and outside the HE sector?• How might we incorporate field trips into our teaching?• How might we give English literature students opportunities to be creative in their responses? Are we equipped to assess such work?• How might the use of digital technologies be embedded in the learning experience?

3) ‘Doing’ Interdisciplinarity• In what ways might we encourage students to adopt

and to develop interdisciplinary approaches to landscape writing?

• How might we create genuinely interdisciplinary learning spaces by bringing together students from different subject areas?

• Are such moves towards interdisciplinarity desirable?

‘Landscape Writing’ @ MMU Cheshire:Some Contexts

• Popular interest in landscape (writing); ‘golden age of landscape writing’ (John Wylie)

• Growth of interdisciplinary field of literary geographies

‘Landscape Writing’ @ MMU Cheshire:Previous Teaching

• Third-year ‘Green Writing’ module at Salford

• MA module on ‘The Poetics of Space & Place’ at Lancaster

• In-the-field teaching at the Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere

‘Landscape Writing’ @ MMU Cheshire:Interdisciplinarity

Outdoor Studies @ MMU Cheshire

The Outdoor Studies programme is designed to develop physical performance in the outdoors, an understanding of a wide range of outdoor environments and a belief in the value and importance of outdoor education in contemporary society. Adventure tourism and management, learning outside the classroom, benefits of active population, access to green spaces. Specific development of experience and competency in mountaineering (summer, winter and alpine), paddlesport (canoe, kayak, whitewater and sea), skiing, caving, sailing, windsurfing, mountain biking.

‘Genre Literature’

• Final-year optional unit for all Single and Combined Honours students

• Designed with the aim of the focus ‘genre(s)’ changing fairly regularly

• Historical element; but overarching emphasis on ideas

‘Genre Literature’ (2013/14)Landscape Writing

• Extracts & texts from the Bible to Edgelands. • Pluralistic range of texts: fiction; creative non-fiction;

journals; notebooks; poetry; letters and so on. • Rural, urban & liminal topographies • Non-chronological structure; but particular emphases

on Romantic and contemporary writing. • Supplementary theoretical reading: e.g. Doreen

Massey on a ‘progressive sense of place; Andrew Thacker on ‘critical literary geography’; Sally Bushell on ‘literary maps’.

‘Environment, Expedition & Adventure’

• Final-year Outdoor Studies unit• Philosophical exploration of the benefits of ‘journeying, soloing &

wilderness’• Also explores sustainable approaches to outdoor activities &

adventure tourism • Linked to Alpine field trip

Shared Lecture Series

• 1 hour session (plus 2 hour seminar)

• Students brought together

• Delivered jointly and individually

• Short lectures & group discussions

• Exploring themes & ideas• Sessions around campus

Shared Lecture Series Positives: English Literature Staff

• Need to think more carefully than ever about language

• Opened up thinking about relationship between theoretical/abstract/imaginative & practical/embodied/applied

• Some excellent discussions; confidence building for English students

• Liberation from text facilitated emphasis on ideas

Shared Lecture Series Positives: Outdoor Studies Staff

• OS staff and students familiar & comfortable with interdisciplinary teaching & learning

• Comfortable with teaching & learning based around ideas rather than strict chronology

• Provided OS with opportunity to broaden scope of provision

• Exchange thinking about what it means to teach within a Department of Interdisciplinary Studies

Shared Lecture Series Challenges: Staff from both subjects

• Language• Limited student bonding (?) & need for greater field

trip element• Some concerns over dilution of literariness / too

much literary content • ‘Soft’ introduction of interdisciplinary approach; but

risky at third-year level

Shared Lecture Series Student Feedback

• Formal feedback extremely positive: English Literature (4.65) & Outdoor Studies (4.5)

• Informal feedback less positive & anxieties raised in staff-student committee

‘Landscape Writing’Since Christmas

• English only lectures & seminars

• Emphasis on ‘practices’: mapping; note-taking; walking etc.

• Sessions outside the seminar room: particular focus on ‘edgelands’

• Creative exercises: personal maps of Crewe; ‘drifting’ around campus; multi-sensory responses to Crewe Business Park etc.

‘Landscape Writing’Some Reflections

• Outstanding critical essays (3000 words)

• Interest in postgraduate study

‘Landscape Writing’Some Questions

• How might we interweave English & Outdoor Studies teaching in the future?

• Does such interdisciplinary teaching need to be introduced in first-year?

• Should both sets of students take precisely the same module?

• What field elements should the unit contain?

• Should we be thinking about a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies?