Observations of Nature

My family visited Wrangell-St. Elias National Park in Alaska yesterday, one of the most remote national parks in the country.  While in the Visitors' Center, I found a book I had to buy.  It is by Clare Walker Leslie and Charles E. Roth and it is called Keeping a Nature Journal, but it is the subtitle that caught my attention:  "Discover a Whole New Way of Seeing the World Around You."   Discovering new ways of seeing is the focus of my AP English class for the fall!  The book has a lot of great ideas for exercises that I can do with my students to help us to analyze, sketch, and write about the world around us through close observation. One of my ideas is to take the class outside to do some close nature observations in the school courtyard, and then perhaps read poetry on topics relating to nature by Mary Oliver.