The Creative Life Learning Community
The Creative Life Learning Community is a great fit for students interested in writing, creativity, and the great outdoors.
In the first semester, students will physically break the boundary between the traditional classroom and the natural world through experiential poetry. In this class, students will explore the Greater Philadelphia region to visit off-the-beaten path locations to see how a variety of artists, writers, and nature lovers have integrated the landscape of their lives into their creative process. Students will then use these examples to inspire their own writing, using a diverse array of poets and forms to guide their work.
Meanwhile, students will simultaneously apply their outdoors experiences in a more traditional writing classroom in an Introduction to Writing course. It’s here that an exploration of the landscape of the self will occur as students explore the ways their own coming-of-age experiences have been shaped by the world around them, both natural and human.
In the spring, students will explore indigenous ways of knowing in Native American Narratives, a course that introduces Indigenous American texts, which cover the radical changes imposed upon native groups on both their land and their nature-based worldview. In walks around campus and in local preserves, students and faculty will try to seek the ways of knowing illustrated in these texts while enjoying a rich network of local nature preserves. Students will write critically and creatively engaged papers about these texts and their own experiences in the natural world. At the same time, students will take a History of Racism & Anti-Racism course to further examine how the historical development of the United States has, to our own detriment, severed the relationship between people and the land.
This learning community is ideal for students who are seeking a creative connection to the natural world that surrounds us. Students should be prepared to be outdoors and off campus in all types of weather. Reflective hikes will be a part of coursework and/or co-curricular activities for this community, so students should have the ability to walk up to a mile in varied terrain.
Faculty Director:
Fall Semester Courses:
- COL101 – Cabrini Success Seminar
- WNA101 – Introduction to Writing
- WNA225 – Experiential Poetry
Spring Semester Courses:
- WNA240 – Native American Narratives
- SEM102 – History of Racism and Anti-Racism