Tough Work

Wednesday I went back to Grayling, MI for a research trip. Seriously.

Yes, I had my fishing gear packed too, but I actually was up there to do some academic work. Grant funded, no less.

I'm doing a presentation at a pre-semester workshop for writing teachers at my university on using annotated maps as a writing assignment. In short, this asks students to find or create a map of some significant location, write a short overview introducing that place and its importance, then write short pieces in different styles about different features of that place. Students thus use different writing techniques to present a more well-rounded view of the place than a straightforward expository essay would, to link text to visuals, and to experiment with and coordinate different forms of discourse within a single exericise. At a minimum, it forces students to move beyond monotonous prose and the stale, formulaic essays that teachers have assigned since the days of quills and parchment, and which most students can (and possibly do) crank out in their sleep. Plus, these assignments are nearly impossible to plagiarize.

I'm going to use some examples from last spring's classes, though I don't know if these really show the potential of annotated maps. That was my first experiment with them, I assigned them as a brief exercise, and probably without adequate preparation. Some students gave very interesting accounts of their places by combining interviews, memoirs, tour-guide style recitations of fact, expository analysis, and brief narratives of significant or representative events that occur in their chosen place. Others offered four or five paragraphs of the abovementioned monotonous prose they use to discuss everything from childhood memories to the problems of sports doping. But I think there's potential.

To show what might be done with annotated maps on a larger scale, perhaps for a major research assignment, I decided to prepare one of the Mason Tract preserve along the South Branch of the Au Sable river. The place is rich in history, scenic value, and steeped in ongoing controversy due to surrounding development and oil exploration. A perfect subject for a complex treatment in which different voices, perspectives, and patterns of fact harmonize to create a focused portrait.

Did I mention the fishing is good there? Or usually is.

Once I got the grant, I decided to use some of it to visit the tract and write about that for my presentation. Tough work, I tell you. But I've never been one who refused to go the extra mile, or, with the right incentive, the extra hundred and fifty.

I'll give the fishing report a tomorrow or Monday. For now, a few sights from the Tract.


(A bend in the river)


(All that remains of Durant's Castle, a sprawling mansion that once stood along the South Branch. Construction finished in October 1930. It burned to the ground in February, 1931.)


(Cardinal Flower)


(The Mason Tract is protected, but not untouched. Periodic logging helps regenerate habitat for game animals)



(Sunset on the water. The first time I attempted at this shot, my flyrod got in the way. heh.)