Holes in the Fabric of Framingham

Charles Sposato
Framingham High School

Contents
Frameworks
Introduction
Step 1: Identity Exercise
Step 2: Walden
Step 3: Class Projects
Step 4: "Civil Disobedience" and "Letter From a Birmingham Jail"
Step 5: "Life Without Principle"

ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS CURRICULUM FRAMEWORKS USED:
Guiding Principles: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Language Strand: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Literature Strand: 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 18
Composition Strand: 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25

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On my application I wrote, Thoreau teaches us to dream, to think, and to learn that life offers us infinite wonder if we only dare to dream. But he does not advocate that we become idle dreamers; rather he espouses dreamers with strategies; courageous people who realize that life’s beauties are within our homes, yards, selves. He tells us that, "If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."

My project will be to read and analyze an edited version of the essay "Life Without Principle", the complete essay "On Civil Disobedience", sections of "Walking", "Slavery In Massachusetts" and selected sections of Walden, i.e. Economy, Where I lived and What I lived For, Higher Laws, and Conclusion. Emerson’s essay on Thoreau will be edited and shared as well as Alcott’s journal entries concerning HDT’s death. Each work will be accompanied with vocabulary sheets, synopsis of work, and questions to be answered.

Writing Activities: Journals: reading and reflective, essays, proposals.

Visitations: Thoreau Institute, Walden, and Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

Speakers: Bradley Dean, Jayne Gordon, Hydrologist, Soil expert.

Possible Projects: Study underground railroad in Framingham, landscape of Framingham, preserve pond behind school, clean up areas, rediscover Harmony Grove,the preservation of the nature trail etc.

We will read these selections privately as well as class; they will be read with the following metaphor in mind: Framingham, our community, as well as Thoreau’s Concord community is a finely knit fabric; in some places there are holes that need mending. They may be spiritual, intellectual, or physical, but one thing is clear, they require attention and action.

While reading the texts, please list the "holes" Thoreau discusses. Compare them with the ones existing in Framingham and meditate on what you (we) could do to help mend them? (Each student will select one private "hole" s/he can begin mending; then we will decide as a class upon another we could mend as a group).

The readings will outlined with certain quotes from each highlighted to draw the student’s attention to a particular passage; each student will write a brief personal statement about the passage; they will share ideas; discuss the similarities and what Thoreau would have recommended and why he would have recommended this particular action or nonaction. (Thoreau’s essay(s) in general and "Life Without Principal" in particular reveal his ideas upon "charitable actions" and philanthropy and they will surely arouse much discussion).

Activator 1: Have students write one question under each of the following columns:

What I know about H.D. Thoreau.

What I think I know about H.D. Thoreau.

What I would like to know about H.D. Thoreau.

List answers on the board; discuss what they reveal; clarify misconceptions; receive direction from third column.

Step 1: Sandy Stott’s Identity Exercise

Walden will be introduced through this writing; students will also learn about the many identities they possess; they will learn that self-knowledge usually leads to wisdom and that being wise means "helping others."

Activator 2: Have students write three questions they would ask H.D. Thoreau if they had the opportunity. Share questions and reasons behind each on.

Step 2: Read / Discuss Walden

• Students will select favorite quotes from book; record them in a journal; they will share their selections with the class.
• Students will record the issues (holes) Thoreau writes about: identity, private ownership, employment, legal issues, contentment, possessions, change, life’s necessities, ecology, citizenship, housing, morality, truth, and justice.

ECONOMY:

• Page 1, complete.
• 2, selected paragraphs.
• 3, But men labor under a mistake..
• Most men...
• He has no time...
• 4, I sometimes wonder...(public opinion)
• 5, Mass of men...
• 6, One farmer says to me...
• 7, The greater past...
• I think that we...
• 9, Most of the luxuries...
• 11, In any weather...
• 13, My purpose...
• 14, As for clothing...
• 15, Shelter..
• 22, And when the farmer...
• 23, Most men appear...
• 37, I am wont to think...
• 44, My furniture...
• 48, In short...
• 50, There is no odor...
• 51, Be sure that you give...
• 52, Philanthropy is almost...

Step 3: Discuss possible class projects.

• Defend choice with Thoreauvian examples; plan strategies.
• Present plan and project.
• Contact community resources to help in project.

Step 4: Read Civil Disobedience and M.L. King’s Letter From A Birmingham Jail.

Share quotes and relate to present project.

Discuss:

• That government is best which governs not at all.
• Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.
• Law never made men a whit more just...
• The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies.
• He who gives himself entirely to his fellow-men appears to them useless and selfish; but he who gives himself partially to them is pronounced a benefactor and philanthropist.
• I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave’s government also.
• A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.
• After the first blush of sin comes its indifference; and from immoral it becomes,as it were, unmoral, and not quite unnecessary to that life which we have made.
• Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?
• ...then, I say, break the law.
• I know this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men whom I could name,---if ten honest men-only,--ay, if one honest man...ceasing to hold slaves, were actually to withdraw from this copartnership, and be locked up in the county jail therefor, it would be the abolition of slavery in America.
• Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.
• Thus the State never intentionally confronts a man’s sense, intellectual or moral,but only his body, his senses.

Step 5: Read Life Without Principle.

• Discuss reflections.
• Share quotes.

Discuss:

• The world is a place of business.
• I prefer to finish my education at a different school.
• The ways by which you may get money almost without exception lead downward.
• Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.
• An efficient and valuable man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not.
• You must get your living by loving.
• The title wise is, for the most part, falsely applied.
• Wherever a man separates from the multitude, and goes his own way in this mood, there indeed is a fork in the road, though ordinary travellers may only see a gap in the paling.
• A man had better starve at once than lose his innocence in the process of getting his bread.
• When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip.
• I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality.
• Read not the TIMES. Read the ETERNITIES.
• What is called politics is comparatively something so superficial and inhuman, that practically I have never fairly recognized that it concerns me at all.
• The newspapers are the ruling power.

We will discuss these ideas, select a group project (see page 1, under POSSIBLE PROJECTS) and base it upon the content and inferred solution(s); students will make all necessary contacts; they will support their decisions by offering the thoughts and actions of Thoreau. The results will be Thoreau inspired and implemented.

"I think that the richest vein is somewhere hereabouts; so by the divining rod and thin rising vapors I judge; and here I will begin to mine." Walden, Where I lived...