This college credit course is taught by Prof. Bonney MacDonald, Professor of American and Western Ameican Literature at West Texas A&M University, 806-651-2456 (Email: bmacdonald@wtamu.edu)

Course Requirements and Syllabus

History Review and Native American Writing

Ranching in the West

Contemporary Western Fiction

Nature and Environmental Writing in the Southwest

Assigned Books:

Exploration literatury by Lewis and Clark, John Wesley Powell, and John Muir

Historical Texts by Frederick Jackson Turner, Walter Prescott Webb, J. Frank Dobie, Donald Worster, Patty Limerick and Richard White

Ranching and enrironmental perspectives from Nathan Sayer, Dan Dagget and Jay Jusard, Richard Knight, Wendel Berry, Wes Jackson, Paul Starrs and Linda Hasselstrom

Fiction and memoir by Will James, Wallace Stegner, Willim Kittredge, Gretel Ehrlich, Mark Spragg and Willard Wyman

Formal class meets each and every morning with discussions of assigned books. Along the way, they explore Spanish and Anglo traditions in land use and policy, work their way through the consequences of the Homestead Act, study ranching practices in the southwest, and explore the traditions of native populations.