Approaching Walden
Curriculum Unit
Gwynne A. Sawtelle
Westborough High School
“To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.”
From Walden
by Henry David Thoreau
Unit Overview
Intended Students: 9th, 10th, and 11th graders in MCAS preparation courses
Themes:
· Living, Reading, and Writing Deliberately
· Life’s Necessities
· Self-Awareness and Reflection
· Appreciation of the Natural Environment
Objectives:
· to develop students’ reading comprehension skills
· to strengthen students’ writing skills
· to broaden students’ experience with challenging texts
· to develop students’ public speaking skills
· to encourage students’ ability to be reflective and self-aware
· to prepare students for the MCAS
Tools:
· Cris Tovani’s Comprehensive Strategies for Adolescent Readers
· Journals
· Visit to Walden
· Evening Presentation of Personal Essays: Westborough Lyceum
· Close Examination of Text
Material:
· Selections from: Walden and Thoreau’s Journals
Lessons
· Lesson One: Living Deliberately
· Lesson Two: Reading Deliberately
· Lesson Three: Strategy Study
· Lesson Four: Research and Present
· Lesson Five: Pondering Purpose
· Lesson Six: Writing Deliberately
· Lesson Seven: True Necessities
· Lesson Eight: Clothing
· Lesson Nine: Shelter
· Lesson Ten: Time in the Woods
· Lesson Eleven: The Visit
· Lesson Twelve: Leaving the Woods
· Lesson Thirteen: Lessons for Beyond the Woods
· Lesson Fourteen: Westborough Lyceum
Lesson One: Living Deliberately
Objectives:
· develop students’ awareness of Thoreau’s life and work.
· develop students’ confidence in reading and speaking in front of peers.
· awaken students’ awareness of and appreciation for the natural world.
Activity:
As students enter the room, write the question “Do you live deliberately?” on the board. Each student will receive a small passage from Thoreau’s Walden. Instruct them to read the passage to themselves and write down what it means in their own words. Give dictionaries to look up any words with which they are unfamiliar. The teacher should also be available for questions. Tell them that they will be expected to share their passages with the class.
After approximately ten minutes, take the class outside to a quiet place on the school grounds, sit in a circle, and share their passages. The teacher, at that point, should give each student a handout with all of the passages so that the students can read along. Each student will read her passage and explain what she thinks it means. Some discussion of each passage should follow.
The teacher should read her passage last: Thoreau’s “I went to the woods to live deliberately….” The teacher should lead a discussion of what that means. How do we live deliberately?
In the last five minutes of class, the teacher should show the students a portrait of Thoreau. Explain briefly a bit about his life, especially his time at Walden. Ask the students to think about whether or not they would be interested in living in the woods for two years and two months.
Homework: Ask the students to bring in something they enjoy reading: a magazine, a newspaper, a book, etc.
Lesson Two: Reading Deliberately
Objectives:
· develop students’ reading comprehension skills
· support students’ enjoyment of reading
Activity:
The teacher should write the following instructions on the board as students enter:
Please take out the book or magazine you brought with you today. You have five minutes to read. You will be expected to share a summary of your reading when you are done.
At the end of the allotted time, ask the students if they understood what they read. Ask them how they understood it. Brainstorm a list of methods they used. At the end of the list, explain that they have identified “Reading Strategies.” Come up with a clear class definition of this term. Ask a few students to share what they read and what it means to them. See if that student and the rest of the class can identify strategies used from the list.
Remind the students that yesterday the class talked about what it means to live deliberately. Explain to them that while they are in this class, they will also be trying to read deliberately. Tell the students that the class will be spending lots of time working on perfecting their reading strategies so that they can read everything as easily as they have just read the book or magazine they brought with them today.
Ask the students if they have ever had the experience of coming to the end of reading something and realizing that they have no idea what they have read. Ask the students to think of a book they had a hard time reading and have them share. Identify the fact that different books are different for different people. Have them think about what was different between their experience of reading the book they brought with them today, and that book they had a hard time understanding.
Most likely, with some direction, the students will talk about the voice in their head that is focused and engaged when they are reading something they understand, and that voice that is completely involved in something else when they are reading something they don’t understand.
Model for the students you own inner voice. Give each voice a distinct personality. Encourage the students to be aware of that voice all the time when they are reading – which voice is playing in your head as you read: the focused voice or the distracted voice. When you are aware of this, you can say that you are truly reading deliberately.
Homework: Pass out Chris Tovani’s reading strategies. Have the students read them for homework and write out two thoughtful comments or questions for collection.
Lesson Three: Strategy Study
Objectives:
· develop students’ understanding of Tovani strategies
· increase students’ comfort level with Thoreau’s writing
Activity:
Write the following on the board as students enter the room:
Ask the students to take out the reading strategies from yesterday. Have the students read one of their comments or questions that they wrote for homework. Do this as a reading circle without any discussion. Tell the students that they will be exploring these strategies in detail today. Explain that each student will be given a strategy on which they will become an expert. Tell them to keep their peers’ questions and comments in mind as they are studying their assigned strategies.
Assign a strategy to pairs or small groups of students. Give them approximately 15 minutes to become experts on that strategy and to prepare a small lesson on it for the class. Give them a selection from Walden to use in their lesson and have them show the class how they could use their strategy to understand it. Make dictionaries available.
Once the students have all presented and everyone has gained an initial level of comfort with the strategies, direct their attention to the comment on the board. Explain that you have prepared a field trip for the class in which they will visit Walden Pond. Explain that they have a few things to accomplish so that they are completely prepared for this trip. First, they should have some experience with his writing about his time on the pond.
Pass out the first four paragraphs of Walden. Give the class five quiet minutes to read a bit of it. Ask them to look up at you when they hear their distracted voice instead of their focused voice.
When the allotted time is up, model a read aloud. Ask the students to take out their list of strategies and check off which ones you use. Talk about the strategies you used when you are done.
Finish reading the passage asking the students to look for evidence of what Thoreau’s world was like. Ask them if they think their world is so different.
Explain that another task they must do before they can take their own trip into the woods is to gather information about what life was really like in America when Thoreau was alive and writing, and also information about Thoreau’s life. Tell them that they will spend the next class period in the library gathering that information.
Homework: Bring in one fact about Thoreau or America at the time when Thoreau was alive. It must be something other than when he was born and when he died. (1817-1862)
Lesson Four: Research and Present
Objectives:
· further develop students’ understanding of Thoreau’s life and work.
· develop students’ understanding of 19th century America
· develop students’ research and presentation skills
Activity:
Divide the class into five groups. Give each group one of the following topics to explore:
· Thoreau’s life before going to Walden (1817-1845)
· Thoreau’s life at Walden and after (1845-1862)
· Thoreau’s work
· Community life in America in the 19th century
· Political issues in America in the 19th century
Tell the class that they will be presenting on these topics tomorrow in class. They will be expected to have all of the following items for their presentation:
· a visual that teaches (not just a picture)
· questions for the class that provoke thought (not just ask for factual information)
· a typed outline of a five to ten minute lecture/discussion on their topic
· at least two pages of good notes on unique information from each group member (discuss note taking briefly)
· a bibliography
Remind them that everyone must participate equally. Spend the rest of the class period in the library.
Homework:
Complete preparation for presentation.
Use next class period to present. Ask students to keep the question “Why did Thoreau go to the woods?” in mind as they listen to each other’s projects.
Lesson Five: Pondering Purpose
Objectives:
· develop students’ understanding of purpose as it relates to reading and writing
· further develop students’ ability to read and comprehend difficult texts
Activity:
As students enter the room, write the following on the board and ask students to write down their answers:
Why do people read?
Explain that another valuable reading strategy is to reflect on purpose, why did the author you are reading write, and why are you reading it? We will be talking about that today, and ultimately come back to the questions asked earlier: Why did Thoreau write? What was his purpose?
Have the students share their answers to the questions on the board.
Why do people write? To express frustration? To honor someone? To entertain people? To share information? To make money? To deal with something difficult? For public consumption? For their eyes only?
Talk a bit about the purpose of the different kinds of reading they do. Do they read for pleasure? To get lost in a good story? To do well on a biology test? To get information about a sports team? To find a good movie?
Explain that sometimes it helps us to better understand something if we can first of all understand the reason the author was writing, and think about why we are reading it…
Pass out the next selection of Walden (p. 1637: “But men labor…” to p. 1639: “One farmer says…” Norton Anthology of American Literature). Explain that you are going to read it together with the following purpose:
Try to find the answer to this question: What is Thoreau’s opinion of why men and women do what they do? Why do men and women work?
Read and discuss.
Homework:
Write about what you believe is the purpose of work. How do you define work? Why do people work? Why should people work? Why do you work? What do you hope your work will be like as an adult?
Lesson Six: Writing Deliberately
Objectives:
· develop students’ writing skills
· encourage students to further reflect on living, reading, and writing deliberately
Activity:
As students are entering class, write the following on the board:
Have students take out their writing about the purpose of work. Explain that we have been talking about what it means to live deliberately and to read deliberately. Ask a student to summarize each of these concepts.
Tell the students that today they will talk about writing deliberately.
Explain that one of the keys of writing deliberately is to have a thoughtful structure.
Play the writing structure game:
Give each student a piece of paper with one of the following words on it:
Good/Engaging First Sentence
Introduction
Thesis Statement
Transition Sentence
Evidence
Body Paragraph
Conclusion
Strong Argument
Stronger Argument
Strongest Argument
Tell the students to arrange themselves in order that these items would fall in a thoughtfully structured essay. It is ok to have students stand in clumps, or one in front of the other to represent that multiple items might fall within one paragraph.
Discuss their choices. Have them look at their own writing and see if they can identify these elements of an essay in their own writing.
Spend the next two days in the computer lab peer editing, self editing, and working with the teacher on their drafts. Collect the essay at the end of the second day.
Lesson Seven: True Necessities
Objectives:
· further develop students’ understanding of Thoreau’s work.
· further develop students’ ability to comprehend complicated texts.
Activity:
As the students are entering the room, write the following on the board:
Ask the students to answer the question on the board in their notebooks.
Explain that we have spent some time thinking about what it means to live deliberately, and what our purpose is. Today, we will take some time to explore what is truly necessary to live deliberately and with a purpose.
Have the class share and discuss their lists.
Pass out the next selection of Walden (p. 1640: “Let us consider…” to p. 1643: “If I should…” Norton Anthology of American Literature). Have them read the first paragraph on their own. Tell them to try to use their reading strategies. Tell them their purpose is to identify what Thoreau deems necessities. Tell them to mark the places in the text where their mind starts to wonder.
Give them 10 minutes to read quietly and then discuss it.
Read and discuss the rest of the passage.
At the end of the passage be sure the class has identified Thoreau’s necessities: Food, Shelter, and Clothing. Discuss whether or not they agree. Look at Thoreau’s attitude about wealth…
Homework:
Write about your attitude about clothing. What styles do you like? Do you like to shop? Why do you buy certain clothes?
Lesson Eight: Clothing
Objectives:
· further develop students’ understanding of Thoreau’s work.
· further develop students’ ability to comprehend complicated texts.
Activity:
Write the following on the board as students are entering the classroom:
“Often if an accident happens to a gentleman’s legs, they can be mended; but if a similar accident happens to the legs of his pantaloons, there is no help for it; for he considers, not what is truly respectable, but what is respected.”
Ask the students to take out what they wrote and reread it choosing three thoughts to share with a partner. Have them share their thoughts with someone they are sitting near. After approximately five minutes, broaden the discussion to the rest of the class.
Pass out the next section of Walden (p. 1645: “As this business…” to p. 1648: “As for shelter…” Norton Anthology of American Literature). Give each student a “Reading Deliberately Card.” Explain that each of them must use their card at some point during the class. Using the card means they raise their hand and say, “I’m confused” or “I’m lost.” The class then uses our strategies to construct meaning.
Read and discuss section with the purpose of identifying Thoreau’s attitude about Clothing.
Homework:
Design the perfect home. (This could be a drawing, a written
description, a picture from a magazine…)
They will need to be prepared to share it with the class.
Lesson Nine: Shelter
Objectives:
· further develop students’ understanding of Thoreau’s work.
· further develop students’ ability to comprehend complicated texts.
Activity:
As the students are entering the room, write the following on the board:
“Man was not made so large limbed and robust but that he must seek to narrow his world, and wall in a space such as fitted him.”
Have the students take out their “perfect homes.” Have each student share their home, explaining each element of it and the purpose behind it.
Pass out the next selection from and pass out again the “Reading Deliberately” cards.
Read and discuss this selection with the purpose of understanding Thoreau’s attitude about shelter.
Remind the students that the visit to the woods is approaching. Our understanding of Thoreau’s philosophy about each of these necessities is critical to a successful trip.
Homework:
Make a list of things you would do if you could live in the woods for two years and two months. What would you bring and how would you spend your time.
Lesson Ten: Time in the Woods
Objectives:
· further develop students’ understanding of Thoreau’s work.
· further develop students’ ability to comprehend complicated texts.
· develop an appreciation for what Thoreau’s experience at Walden was like.
Activity:
As the students are entering the room, write the following in the board:
“Near the end of March 1845, I borrowed an axe and went down to the woods by Walden Pond, nearest to where I intended to build my house, and began to cut down some tall arrowy white pines, still in their youth for timber…”
Have the students share in a circle two things they would bring with them to the woods, and then two things they would do while they were there.
Pass out the next selection from Walden (selections from p. 1656 to p. 1693 Norton Anthology of American Literature). Read and discuss it with the purpose of understanding some of the details of what Thoreau did and thought while he was living in the woods. Ask them if they would have spent their time very differently. Ask them if anything we have read surprised them.
Remind them that they will be visiting Walden for our next class. We have discussed why he went, what he thought was important to have there, and what he pondered and what he did while he was there. These are all critical parts of making our trip a success.
Homework:
Choose a favorite sentence or two from some part of Walden that we have read together to read at the site of Thoreau’s house. Be prepared to explain why you chose that passage.
Lesson Eleven: The Visit
Objectives:
· develop students’ more concrete appreciation for Thoreau’s experience
· encourage students’ use of journals
Activity:
Pass out journals to the students on the bus. In the front of each journal should be a passage from Thoreau’s journal. Explain that Thoreau used journals consistently through out his life. Tell them that you will ask the students to write in their journals while thy are at the pond.
After arriving at the pond, show the students the replica of the house. Have them walk through it, and examine the statue. Give them a few minutes to write about what they see. Is it bigger or smaller than they imagined it? Could you imagine yourself living in it?
Walk to the site of the house, stopping a few times along the way to look at the pond and write what they see and hear.
At the site of the house, have the students share their passages and explain why they chose it. Have them place a rock on the pile. Have the students write in their journals at the end.
Walk the rest of the way around the lake, stopping once or twice to write. Have lunch on the beach before leaving.
Homework:
Choose two thoughts from your journal to share with the class.
Lesson Twelve: Leaving the Woods
Objectives:
· further develop students’ understanding of Thoreau’s work.
· further develop students’ ability to comprehend complicated texts.
· further develop students’ ability to be reflective.
Activity:
As students are entering the class, write the following on the board:
“I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one.”
Ask the students to take out their journals and share with the class the two thoughts they identified in their homework.
Pass out the final section of Walden (p. 1892 “I left the woods…” to p. 1808 Norton Anthology of American Literature).
Read and discuss with the purpose of understanding what lessons Thoreau gained from his experience.
Make a list of those lessons at the end of the class.
Homework:
Write about what you believe is Thoreau’s greatest lesson and what we have to learn from him.
Lesson Thirteen: Lessons for Beyond the Woods
Objectives:
· further develop students’ ability to write clear and well structured essays.
· further develop students’ ability to comprehend complicated texts.
· further develop students’ ability to be reflective.
Activity:
Explain to the students what a Lyceum is. Tell them that as their final culmination of their examination of Walden they will be sharing these papers about Thoreau’s Greatest Lesson and What We Have to Learn from Him at a “Westborough Lyceum.” It will be held in the evening at the local library and parents and friends are invited to attend.
Have students share the lesson about which they have chosen to write.
Have students work with a partner to edit their writing.
Meet with students to work on their essays.
Talk about presentation skills. Brainstorm a list of strategies speakers use to engage an audience.
Show videos of speakers like President Kennedy, President Clinton, and Martin Luther King, Jr.. Maya Angelou, students giving graduation speeches, etc. Talk about what makes them interesting or uninteresting.
Homework:
Practice reading essay aloud.
Lesson Fourteen: Westborough Lyceum
Objectives:
· develop students’ confidence in public speaking
· develop students’ ability to articulate simply and clearly a well supported opinion
Activity:
Students will present their essays in the evening at the local library. Identify students who will do the following: welcome the guests, summarize what we’ve done in class including our visit to the pond for any visitors, make a quick explanation of Thoreau’s life, introduce each student.
Following the readings, congratulate them on a job well done and present each student with a copy of the entire version of Walden.
Have snacks and informal discussion afterwards.
Quotations from Walden for initial study…
“But men labor under a mistake. The better part of man is soon ploughed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool’s life…”
“The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.”
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.”
“What every body echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood to-morrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields.”
“What old people say you cannot do you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new…Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost… Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the young, their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such miserable failures, for private reasons, as they must believe; and it may be that they have some faith left which belies that experience and they are only less young than they were.”
“Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another? Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant? We should live in all the ages of the world in an hour; ay in all the worlds of the ages. History, Poetry, Mythology…”
“All change is a miracle to contemplate; but is tis a miracle which is taking place every instant. Confucius said, ‘To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, this is true knowledge.’”
“What good I do, in the common sense of that word, must be aside from my main path, and for the most part wholly unintended. Men say, practically, Begin where you are and such as you are without aiming mainly to do become of more worth, and with kindness aforethought go about doing good… Set about being good.”
“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation for the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep.”
“I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to pain a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”
“Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who failed to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is by failure.”
“Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.”
“It is not all books that are as dull as their readers. There are probably words addressed to our condition exactly, which, if we could really hear and understand, would be more salutary than the morning or the spring to our lives, and possibly put a new aspect on the face of things for us. How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. The book exists for us perchance which will explain our miracles and reveal new ones.”
“However ever mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is.”
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life…”
Strategies for Reading
Deliberately
1. Activate background knowledge and make connections between new and known information.
2. Self-Question the text in order to clarify ambiguity and deepen understanding.
3. Draw inferences from the text using background knowledge and clues from the text.
4. Determine importance in text in order to separate details from main ideas.
5. Monitor comprehension in order to make sure meaning is being constructed.
6. Employ fix up strategies to repair confusion.
7. Use sensory images to enhance comprehension and visualize the reading.
8. Synthesize and extend thinking.
Tovani ‘01