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    Embodied Pedagogy Exercise

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    Charmain LeeBoss
    This document outlines a 3-part collaborative exercise for a university seminar that aims to explore the embodied relationships between students, trees, and course texts through meditation, sharing stories about trees, and writing a reflective essay connecting all three elements and drawing from at least 3 course readings. The exercise seeks to challenge conventional academic assessment and imagine new collaborative ways of engaging with course materials. Students are asked to prepare by revising readings on human-tree relations and bringing family stories about trees to class.

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    Embodied Pedagogy Exercise

    Uploaded by

    Charmain LeeBoss
    18 views2 pages
    This document outlines a 3-part collaborative exercise for a university seminar that aims to explore the embodied relationships between students, trees, and course texts through meditation, sharing stories about trees, and writing a reflective essay connecting all three elements and drawing from at least 3 course readings. The exercise seeks to challenge conventional academic assessment and imagine new collaborative ways of engaging with course materials. Students are asked to prepare by revising readings on human-tree relations and bringing family stories about trees to class.

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    This document outlines a 3-part collaborative exercise for a university seminar that aims to explore the embodied relationships between students, trees, and course texts through meditation, sharing stories about trees, and writing a reflective essay connecting all three elements and drawing from at least 3 course readings. The exercise seeks to challenge conventional academic assessment and imagine new collaborative ways of engaging with course materials. Students are asked to prepare by revising readings on human-tree relations and bringing family stories about trees to class.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    18 views2 pages

    Embodied Pedagogy Exercise

    Uploaded by

    Charmain LeeBoss
    This document outlines a 3-part collaborative exercise for a university seminar that aims to explore the embodied relationships between students, trees, and course texts through meditation, sharing stories about trees, and writing a reflective essay connecting all three elements and drawing from at least 3 course readings. The exercise seeks to challenge conventional academic assessment and imagine new collaborative ways of engaging with course materials. Students are asked to prepare by revising readings on human-tree relations and bringing family stories about trees to class.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    Collaborative Exercise: Breathing and Writing with Trees

    May 3, during class time


    Affective Climates Seminar
    Prof Helene Strauss

    This is a 3-part collaborative exercise that aims:

    (1) to draw out unexpected relations between body, text, and our local campus
    environment, and
    (2) to challenge conventional forms of academic assessment as we imagine new
    collaborative and embodied means by which to bring our course texts to life.

    Given the centrality of trees to our course readings – ranging from Robin Wall Kimmerer’s
    essay on the ‘Serviceberry’ and Naomi Klein’s piece on Edward Said’s relationship to ‘tree-
    hugging,’ to Wangari Maathai’s reflections on the Green Belt Movement and Ursula le
    Guin’s meditations on interspecies empathy -- this exercise is structured, first and foremost,
    as a conversation with trees.

    Part 1: Pranayama and guided meditation


    - In-class exercise to cultivate somatic awareness and to decipher embodied sensation
    as a source of information and intelligence. We will pause to collectively reflect on
    what our sensations and breath reveal about our relationship with each other and
    the more-than-human world.

    Part 2: ‘Sympoiesis’
    - In the introduction to the book Staying with the Trouble that you had to read, Donna
    Haraway offers the term ‘sympoiesis’ – meaning ‘to make with’ – as an alternative to
    what she calls ‘bounded individualism.’ Our task in this seminar has been, from the
    outset, to imagine new and old ways of ‘making with’: with each other, with our
    nonhuman kin, with the air, and with the ancestors, to name a few. For this part of
    our assignment, we will engage in a collective exercise of ‘sympoeisis’ by sharing and
    reflecting upon some of our own and our family or community’s stories about trees.
    Part 3: Linking Body with Text (30-45 minutes)
    - Write a brief essay in response to the following question:

    o How have our course texts and the first two exercises helped you rethink
    your own embodied relationship to trees and the local environment?

    - You must refer to at least 3 course texts in your written response, showing a
    sophisticated understanding of some of the key claims made by each author.

    Peer assessment:
    - At the end of part 3, we will collectively brainstorm new ways of assigning value to
    our work. While we remain beholden to the strictures of academic assessment and
    evaluation schemes as cornerstones of the contemporary university, we will
    nevertheless try to find better ways to honour the unique value and skills each of us
    brings to class. This is partly an exercise in decolonizing university assessment
    methods.

    Preparation:
    1. Revise course readings to date, paying attention specifically to the representation of
    human-tree relations.
    2. Speak to family members about their relationship with trees. Bring family and
    community stories to class.
    3. Read up on the ‘Living Limpopo’ case. See for instance:
    o https://livinglimpopo.org/
    o Bega, Sheree. “Plan to uproot 100 000 trees in Limpopo ‘sacrilege,’ says
    baobab expert.” Mail and Guardian, 20 March, 2021.
    https://mg.co.za/environment/2021-03-20-plan-to-uproot-100-000-trees-in-
    limpopo-sacrilege-says-baobab-expert/
    o Liebenberg, Lauren. “Disastrous environmental costs aside, the Musina-
    Makhado SEZ makes little economic sense.” Daily Maverick, June 12, 2022.
    https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2022-06-12-disastrous-
    environmental-costs-aside-the-musina-makhado-sez-makes-little-economic-
    sense/.

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