Wednesday

 Today you have time to finish your essay (PLEASE FINISH BY TOMORROW), finish make up work, and/or work on the following assignments:

FOR Thursday:

If you are finished with your essay please read "Working for a Living: The Codes for Work and Money" on page 482

When you finish write a short paragraph about the following: Write  about either work or money (or the link between them). Consider the values you ascribe to work and/or money. You may wish to consider what Rapaille, the author, says about them and whether you wish to endorse, qualify, or contest his ideas.

 

FOR Friday:

Read "What Secrets Tell" on page 543 and answer the question: 

1) How many types of secrets does Sante identify? What other kinds of secrets can you think of besides those Sante mentions? Do you agree with the reasons Sante cites for the breakdown of secrecy? Why or why not? 

 

Essays

 Please work on your essays, and ONLY your essays today. I have already put in grades for dialectical journals and will not be changing them. We need to move forward and the essay is your next important grade.

 

FOR Thursday:

If you are finished with your essay please read "Working for a Living: The Codes for Work and Money" on page 482

When you finish write a short paragraph about the following: Write  about either work or money (or the link between them). Consider the values you ascribe to work and/or money. You may wish to consider what Rapaille, the author, says about them and whether you wish to endorse, qualify, or contest his ideas.

 

FOR Friday:

Read "What Secrets Tell" on page 543 and answer the question: 

1) How many types of secrets does Sante identify? What other kinds of secrets can you think of besides those Sante mentions? Do you agree with the reasons Sante cites for the breakdown of secrecy? Why or why not? 

 

Walden

 Please work on your essays - only your essays, no dialectical journals - today. I need these done by Wednesday. 

If you are finished with your essay please read "Working for a Living: The Codes for Work and Money" on page 482

When you finish write a short paragraph about the following: Write  about either work or money (or the link between them). Consider the values you ascribe to work and/or money. You may wish to consider what Rapaille, the author, says about them and whether you wish to endorse, qualify, or contest his ideas.

Walden Essay

You have two choices for the essay question. Choose and write only one of these. 

 1) ESSAY QUESTION:

As describe in Walden what is Thoreau's assessment of American Culture (what is wrong with it)?  Using specific evidence from the text discuss and outline his argument.  Then respond to it.  Do you agree or disagree with his insights? 

This issue should cover the entire book - not just "Economy" - meaning you should trace his argument, how it weaves throughout the book, also (think Structure), and use specific evidence from various section of the text.  Note, this essays needs to be at least three pages.  It can be longer.

NOTE- this is due the Wednesday you return from break.

As far as structure goes, think about the following the cycle of a year (Summer - Spring), and find parallels (Pond in Summer vs Pond in Winter).  These parallels will have interrelated ideas or a return or expansion on an ideal.  Further think about the dialectical structure in which pairs of chapters present thematic counterpoints to each other (e.g. "Reading" vs. "Sounds," "Solitude" vs. "Visitors").


You should also look at the Thoreau's continue assessment of American or Human culture.  It is in all chapters - through, it is more subtle in most (examples will be shown below).

Bill McKibben's focus on Thoreau's practical advice for living, however, calls our attention to another structure in which the long opening chapter, "Economy," provides a diagnosis of what is wrong with American life: materialism. The body of the book then presents a cure for the disease of materialism: striving for purity and simplicity as exemplified by Thoreau's own experience and by the symbolic purity of Walden Pond. The final chapter presents Thoreau's optimistic prognosis that each individual reader has the potential to vastly improve his or her life by shifting priorities.

Think about particular themes of the book.

Self-Reliance

Materialism

Life, Consciousness and Existence

The interconnection of all things

Society and class structure

Visions of America

Technology/Modernization

How to live one’s life

Work vs. Enjoying Life

Liberation from traditional economic systems
Solitude
Self-Improvement
Practical and Formal Education
Nature as Eternal Guide and Teacher

 

2) Towards the end of the book Thoreau states 

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.”

What does he mean by this and how does Walden reflect this quote. Make an argument about how Thoreau achieves this quote. Use evidence from the text to support your answer. This essay needs to be at least three pages. 

Week of 11/14 - 11/18

 This week you are finishing Walden and working on dialectical journals. I will post the essay question tomorrow - if you would like to begin.

Good Luck! Email or text me on remind if you have questions or problems.

Friday

 Reading schedule for the next week:

11/14 page 246

11/15 page 262

11/16 page 289

11/17 page 309

11/18 Finished with book Work on Essay.

Higher Laws

 Today we are going to discuss the chapters "Baker Farm" "Higher Laws" and "Brute Neighbors".

Note, we are going to have a Rhetorical Analysis prompt - tomorrow - from "Higher Laws". 

Today, we are also going to read "On Self-Respect" on page 113. 

Tuesday

 

Please read to page 228 in Walden and work on dialectical journals. Potential life threatening quiz tomorrow.

Monday

 Today, you have time to read and work on dialectical journals. You will need to be on page 228 by Wednesday.

GOOD LUCK! 

Ponds

 We are going to do some MC questions on AP Classroom, discuss Walden and look at Ponds. We are also going to read "On Self-Respect" on page 113. 

 

 

CHAPTER 9
"Ponds" - Thoreau sees something spiritual in ponds and water.  Most of the chapter holds an idyllic tone and he describes the unity of nature, self, and divinity.  The pond, among other things, is called "God's Drop".   Note - "Ponds" also comes between the chapters "Village" which recounts his sojourns to the village of Concord - where he is locked up (he reports on the incessant gossip which numbs the soul, and compares going to the village to running the gauntlet), and the chapter entitled "Baker's Farm" where he talks about his neighbor John Field who works himself to exhaustion to pay for his "rustic hut" and feed his family.  The question - why this juxaposition?  

Quotes from the chapter to discuss:

"Once in a while we sat together on the pond, he at one end of the boat, and I at the other; but not many words passed between us, for he had grown deaf in his later years, but he occasionally hummed psalm, which harmonized well enough with my philosophy." (169)

"It was very queer, especially in dark nights, when your thoughts had wandered to vast and cosmogonal themes in other spheres, to feel this faint jerk, which came to interrupt your dreams and link you to Nature again.  It seemed as if I might next cast my line, upward into the air, as well as downward into this element which was scarcely more dense.  Thus I caught two fishes as it were with one hook."  (170)

Also on 170 there is a description of Walden" "It is a clear and deep green well, half a mile long and a mile and three quarters in circumference...a perennial sping in the midst of pine and oak woods."

"Lying between the earth and the heavens, it partakes of the color of both" (171)

"A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature." (180)

This is one of the most symbol-laden chapters in Walden; it presents the pond as having human character. Thoreau introduces the symbolic mode at the end of his opening to the chapter, as he talks about fishing at night, when, he says, "I caught two fishes as it were with one hook", a literal fish and a "symbolic" fish.

 In groups on by yourself answer the following:

In what ways are the following qualities of Walden Pond symbolic of human qualities for which Thoreau thinks we should strive?

1. Its depth and the purity of its water 
2. Its colors, blue and green, and its position between land and sky 
3. Its role as "earth's eye"
4. The pond as a mirror 

Wednesday

 Today we are going to discuss your reading - "Beans" and "The Village" and then look at the chapter on "Ponds".

Tomorrow, you will have the class to write the essay prompt that I gave you on Monday.