author: Michael Barczak

unit's subject: Interdisciplinary: Biology, Environmental Science, and Art

school: Burlingon High School, Burlington, MA        

Acrobat (*.pdf)     Web-published (*.html)

The Artistic Scientist: Thoreau - the Sensitive Observer

This unit will make the students realize that scientific observation and measurement can be approached on an artistic level. The collection of data can be represented as art, visual or verbal. As Thoreau, the students will record their observations of nature and the natural world. Students will also develop a ‘sense of place’ while investigating the environment around them.

author: Matthew R. Burne

unit's subject: Field Biology, Environmental Science, and The Natural History Writing

school: Reading Memorial High School, Reading, MA

Acrobat (*.pdf)     Web-published (*.html)

The Natural History Writing Curriculum Unit

This unit presents a model for introducing students to natural history writers and explores the natural history essay. It also provides a potential jumping-off point for investigating the development and philosophical underpinnings of environmentalism and the field of ecology. The students will be asked to choose a place they will investigate throughout the year. The students will keep a journal about that place and at the end of the year will write a natural history essay about the area.

author: Deirdre G. Callanan

unit's subject: Interdisciplinary and English

school: Dennis-Yarmouth Regional School District, South Yarmouth, MA

Acrobat (*.pdf)     Web-published (*.html)

Attending to Details: Henry David Thoreau, Mary Oliver, and You on Cape Cod

This interdisciplinary unit focuses on the students' appreciation of Cape Cod's environment. The students will explore and appreciate Thoreau's Cape Cod and Mary Oliver's poem, and will create their own portfolio celebrating their own place.

author: Megan H. FitzGerald

unit's subject: English and Interdisciplinary

school: not currently teaching       

Microsoft PowerPoint  +  Lesson Plan (Web-published *.html)

Thoreauvian Lesson Plan

     These two lessons which revolve around Thoreau will utilize modern technology. TrackStar website will be used to create an interactive, online lesson about Thoreau and learning about home-place. These lessons should be coupled with engaging classroom lessons, as well as outdoor trips, including a visit to Walden Pond.

     While viewing the PowerPoint presentation on Thoreau and responding to questions prompted by their teacher, students will receive a verbally and visually interesting preview of Thoreau's life in Lincoln, MA, while simultaneously heightening their awareness of New Bedford, MA in terms of agriculture, forestry, fishing, and wildlife. In this dynamic, place-based learning lesson, students will become engaged quickly, and keep open minds for future lessons on Thoreau.

     In this unique visit to the computer lab to use Trackstar, each American Literature student will cement their figurative language learning, while simultaneously enhancing their breadth of knowledge of Thoreau. Students have easy accessibility to two basic web links which clearly outline definitions and examples of figurative language. Furthermore, two of Thoreau's chapter's from Walden (The Bean-Field and The Ponds) are linked to the Trackstar site with questions which increase the identification of figurative language and the understanding of Thoreau.

author: Judy A. Van de Geer

unit's subject: Interdisciplinary and English/Language Arts

school: not currently teaching         

Acrobat (*.pdf)     Web-published (*.html)

Approaching Walden

This unit gives examples of how utilizing transcendentalist writings could fulfill all the learning requirements for well rounded students in today’s classrooms and prepare them with a world view of honor, respect, a reverence for the Divine, along with practical skills of survival, including trade skills in surveying, carpentry, animal husbandry, farming, political debate and self governance in a democratic society. The overview of curriculum ideas will help teachers create their unique adaptations for students’ lessons in English comprehension, vocabulary development, writing skills, math applications, science, art and music lessons. An understanding of Transcendentalism itself offers teachers and students alike, several avenues to life skills that are outlined in specific writings on Nature, public discourse and political action. Lesson ideas are designed to help incorporate “Approaching Walden” into various curriculum units, whether in the self contained classroom, sheltered immersion settings, or mainstream classes.

author: Shanon Gilmartin

unit's subject: Spanish

school: Burlingon High School, Burlington, MA

Acrobat (*.pdf)     Web-published (*.html)

Approaching Walden Lesson Plan

The main objective of this unit is to journal, relax, slow down, think, and express the thoughts and ideas in Spanish. To participate in self-reflection and see its use and importance in one’s personal growth and understanding. To get accustomed to observing one’s surroundings, and questioning things. To practice thinking in Spanish, rather than translating from English.

author: Bill Goncalo

unit's subject: American Literature and Composition

school: Bishop Connolly High School, Fall River, MA

Acrobat (*.pdf)     Web-published (*.html)

Forbidden Places and Forgotten Spaces - Exploring Interlachen Watershed Area

How do we find value in our own communities and home towns? How do we communicate this value and educate the community about the value of its past and natural resources?  Students will learn about their community by means of the field trips and conducting extensive research. They will be then encouraged to create media that will be used to eventually promote the area and educate the public concerning the resources there.

author: Toby Hubbard

unit's subject: Interdisciplinary and English

school: Walpole High School, Walpole, MA     

Acrobat (*.pdf)     Web-published (*.html)

The Artistic Scientist: Thoreau - the Sensitive Observer

     The objective of this unit is two-fold. The short-term goal is to introduce briefly Thoreau’s concept of “the Wild” and his belief about the relation of Man to Nature–as a logical extension to a more lengthy look at the major British Romantic poets. Included is a 3-day class unit for the A. P. English class.

     A longer term goal is to develop a cross-disciplinary approach that would more effectively integrate various elements, such as: A) The literature of the Transcendentalists (English) B) The effects of the Industrial Revolution Euro-American Westward expansion (Social Studies) “Place-based” historical and geographic study C) Nature as a form of Art and a subject matter for Art (Art) D) Ecological and Environmental Studies (Science).

author: Elizabeth Johnson

unit's subject: Introductory Ecology II (Applied Ecology)

school: Berkshire Community College, Great Barrington, MA

Acrobat (*.pdf)     Web-published (*.html)

Sacred Place or Real Estate? A Consideration of Land Values

Through readings, discussions, and writing assignments, students will formulate the rudiments of a personal environmental ethic. After a comprehensive, if brief, study of the environmental history of Greylock Glen, a 1000+ acre tract adjacent to the Mt. Greylock, students will apply their ethic to justify their proposed land-use decisions. Finally, students will compare their management plans with those of "professionals" to assess similarities/differences in underlying values, compromises used to reconcile conflicting ecological and economic goals, and predict the short and long-term effect on stakeholders (coyotes to concessionaires), locally and regionally.

author: Brodie Miles

unit's subject: American Studies, English, and History.

school: Winchester High School, Winchester, MA        

Acrobat (*.pdf)     Web-published (*.html)

Sauntering Circuitously: Thoreau and American Studies

This unit is designed to work with an American Studies course where both English and History are taught in one class. In the History part of the course, Thoreau serves as an excellent connection with the cause of the war, the following reconstruction, and the development of the west. In the English half of the class the following lessons will focus more on the philosophy of Thoreau and how it is reflected in time.

author: Shannon Murphy

unit's subject: American Literature

school: Masconomet Regional High School, Topsfield, MA   

Acrobat (*.pdf)     Web-published (*.html)

Thoreau: The Personal Is Political

A Unit Plan for 11th Grade American Literature

This unit on Thoreau will fall sequentially between units on Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and the Beat Generation poets and Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. It is intended to parallel the social studies department’s coverage of the Civil Rights and Women’s Rights movements of the 1960s. The focus of the unit will take a cue from the slogan of second wave feminism, “The personal is political.” Thus, the unit will begin with an examination of the radical consequences of crossing boundaries that are commonly thought to be impenetrable. In the case of Thoreau and Emerson, the boundary was that between God and Man, a boundary mediated only by men of the cloth. After an analysis of Transcendentalism as a religious philosophy, we will expand the discussion to artificial boundaries within education, nature (geography), language, and of course, politics. We will spend one more day edging our way closer to Thoreau by examining the false dichotomy between formal writing and creative writing that seems to be drilled into students brains by the MCAS machine. This will prime them for some truly Wild writing, I hope. The focus will remain on connections between the personal and political, the outside world and the inner world, as we wend our way through analysis of Thoreau’s concepts of the Wild, simplicity, deliberate living, and civil disobedience. Most reading will be completed in class. Homework assignments will focus on students’ own experiences. I will ask them to observe and reflect upon their home places, the people of their communities, the choices they have made, and changes they would like to make in their own lives and in their communities.

author: Robin Strizhak

unit's subject: Interdisciplinary

school: Lexington High School, Lexington, MA        

Acrobat (*.pdf)     Web-published (*.html)

Transcendentalism Unit Plan

This unit strives to introduce students to the concepts of the Transcendentalism movement of ~1830-1860, as championed by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Students will study and connect various texts written by Transcendentalists to both the context of the times in which these writers lived, as well as with our own society today. Thus, students will understand the vast significance of history upon literature and life itself in America. Ultimately, students will reflect personally on these concepts, hold meaningful conversations, begin to act with a social conscience in their daily lives, and continue to come back to Transcendentalism throughout the year.