Nature Writing

In Term 4, the Year 10 English students undertook a unit on Nature Writing.  In addition to learning about the genre and reading and analysing exemplars of nature writing, students had the opportunity to explore the natural environment around the school, including two excursions, one to Karkarook Park and one to Namatjira Park. Students were tasked with creating sensory experiences for their readers through the use of imagery and detail and exploring the complex relationship between the natural world and humans. 

Scripture speaks eloquently about what Coleridge calls 'the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us; an inexhaustible treasure.' This treasure of a world has been given to us to attend to it carefully in order to appreciate it as God's creation and to worship God as a result. In a modern world filled with distractions, this unit on nature writing offered students purposeful time and space to process their attention and to respond to what they see. Nature writing challenges them to do so with precision and detail, in a way that honours the complexity and depth of the creation. Because we are more inclined to care for what we love, and we can only love what we know well, the hope is that this nature writing would fuel students' love for the world in order to be faithful stewards of it. You can find a sample of student exemplars here.

Laura Cerbus 

English Teacher