INTO THE WILD, THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, AND TRANSCENDENTALISM DAY 2 – THOREAU

LT & AGENDA As a litterateur, I can analyze the excerpt Where I Lived and What I Lived For from Thoreau’s Walden for its main ideas in order to make connections between Transcendental ideals and my own life. Agenda: LT/Energizer Thoreau Shared reading – questions, words, compare/contrast w/ Emerson’s essay Partner summary Tenets/Beliefs Write (on notebook paper) Reading Time

ENTERING THE CLASSROOM Good morning! In order to be prepared for class, please complete the following tasks: Grab your Springboard book from the shelves. Take out a writing utensil and your notebook. Please put away your phone.

A STEP TOWARDS KNOWING YOUR OWN MIND … Would you prefer… Option A: To engage with and figured out Thoreau’s Where I Lived and What I Lived For through a shared reading, asking questions, and discussing the ideas together Option B: To read Thoreau together quickly, and take steps to gain understanding by working in pairs and small groups

GOOD MORNING! As a litterateur, I can analyze the excerpt Where I Lived and What I Lived For from Thoreau’s Walden for its main ideas in order to make connections between Transcendental ideals and my own life. Due Friday: Into The Wild ch. 1-3 Energizer: What do you make of this clip? What do you think it means, or what does it mean to you?

THOREAU’S WHERE I LIVED AND WHAT I LIVED FOR FROM WALDEN As I read Where I Lived and What I Lived For: Circle words and phrases that you would like clarification on. Ask at least two questions per page.

A LITTLE BIT OF SILENCE AND THINKING Take your Springboard book with you as you travel around to the posters for each section. With your pen, jot down something about that section. This could be: the most important idea a quote that resonates with you what you think Thoreau is talking about a phrase that summarizes. Your goal is to get to at least 5 posters silently.

SUMMARIZING THOREAU’S THOUGHTS Within your row, decide on a sentence that best summarizes your assigned section. Feel free to write this sentence on the poster or in your SpringBoard book. Be ready to share your summary.

TRANSCENDENTALIST TENETS BASED ON OUR WORK WITH WHERE I LIVED AND WHAT I LIVED FOR, WHAT TENETS CAN WE ADD TO OUR LIST OF TRANSCENDENTALIST THINKING?

REFLECTIVE WRITING, ROUND ONE Choose an excerpt from Thoreau’s Where I Lived and What I Lived For that particular resonate with you because it reminds you of an experience you’ve had. Write a personal response to these lines, reflecting on how they connect to the experience it makes you think of. Guidelines: Minimum of 8 sentences Does not have to be a paragraph Include the quote with a proper lead in Use the word “I” Make connections between your experience and the quote

EXAMPLE In the third paragraph of Where I Lived and What I Lived For, Thoreau details a metaphorical dawn with the sentence “Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me.” This symbolic “morning” and “dawn” makes me think of creation. First, it makes me think of the literal mornings I experience in my job. Each and every day, I come to the quiet of my portable and create my lesson for the day. I think, I read, I create. While this experience occurs in the literal morning – and often as the sun is rising during the actual dawn – Thoreau’s words remind me of how planning for a great lesson makes me feel alive. Creating something that I hope expands someone’s learning and mind makes me feel useful and like I matter. It makes me feel awake in the sense that I have to think about so many things: the Springboard curriculum, how I want to teach, the needs of my individual students, the needs of my different classes, the parts of a solid, clear lesson. It is through this balancing act and complexity that I feel my mind engaged with life. The second part of the quote “and there is a dawn in me” makes me think of the creating I do for myself – my creative writing. One of the things that excite me about writing fiction is the potential to write in a way that influences how teens – and others – think about themselves and the world. I think of my favorite authors and the lessons their novels teach: Cassandra Clare and the message that a person can have more than one great love in their life, Maggie Stiefvater and that the real magic in the world is love that occurs and lasts between friends, Kirsten Hubbard and the idea that sometimes it is only in getting lost that a person can become found. The idea that I could write a message like that into existence not only makes me feel something new in my bones and in my soul but it makes me feel alive with possibility. This is what I think about when I try to grapple with what Thoreau means by a symbolic morning and dawn.