Connecting with Thoreau

By Robin Vaupel, author of  My Contract With Henry

Journal Writing for Middle School Students

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Student Objectives:
  • To learn about the life of Henry David Thoreau and the significance of his writings.
  • To learn about Thoreau's writing from quotations that can serve as a window to his works.
  • Following Thoreau's example, to use journal writing as a way to bring out your own ideas and develop your writing skill.
    • Student Activities:
    1. Discovering Henry Thoreau
    2. Finding Your Own Walden
    3. Experimenting With Your Life    		      4. Spending Time With Yourself
         5. Meeting the Future
         6. Going Public With Your Journal
     
    Activity 1:  DISCOVERING HENRY DAVID THOREAU
    Directions:  Research the life and works of Henry David Thoreau, using the Internet or reference books.  Use the questions listed below to guide your search for biographical information.
      1. What was the date and place of Thoreau’s birth?
      2. List at least three “roles” that Thoreau is known for.
      3. Where did Thoreau go to college and when did he graduate?
      4. List several odd jobs that Thoreau held before he moved to Walden Pond
      5. Briefly summarize what Thoreau did between 1845-1847
      6. Name the literary movement that Thoreau is associated with.
      7. List Thoreau’s most famous literary works.
      8. Why did Thoreau once spend a night in jail?
      9. List two historical figures who were influenced by Thoreau’s essay “Civil Disobedience.”
    10.  Give the date of Thoreau’s death.
    11.  Record a quote from Thoreau that you found interesting, inspiring, or intriguing. Copy the quotation and explain what it means to you and why you selected it.
    (All information can be found on the Thoreau Reader, but many other sites are worth visiting.)
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    Activity 2:  FINDING YOUR OWN WALDEN
    Background:  Henry Thoreau lived for two years and two months in a wooded area on Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts.  For two years he observed the pond, the surrounding forest, and the lands adjacent to Walden Woods.  He set out to lead a simple, more primitive life, though the site he chose has been called a “backyard laboratory” since the town of Concord was just a mile away.

    Ideas for Whole or Small Group Discussion:

  • Why do people go to wilderness areas?
  • What wilderness sites have you visited?  What did you do there?  What were your impressions?
  • Thoreau said, “Our village life would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored forests and meadows which surround it. We need the tonic of wildness.” Why do we value and protect wild places?   In what way is wildness a “tonic”?
    • Thoreau’s Words:  Use the following quotes by Thoreau as a starting point or springboard to your own original ideas.
  • “No yard!  But unfenced Nature reaching up to your very sills.  A young forest growing up under your windows, and wild sumacs and blackberry vines breaking through into your cellar…no gate — no front yard —, and no path to the civilized world.”
  • “Yet I experienced sometimes that the most sweet and tender, the most innocent and encouraging society may be found in any natural object….There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of Nature and has his senses still.”
  • “Every little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me.  I was so distinctly made aware of the presence of something kindred to me…and I thought no place could ever be strange to me again.”
  • “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.”
    • Writer’s Challenge:  Seek out your own patch of “wildness” to explore and observe as Thoreau did.  It doesn’t need to be a vast forest or lake.  Your “Walden” can be any small natural area that contains plant life and is inhabited by insects and/or non-domesticated animals.

    Spend about 10 minutes observing this area.  Simulate Thoreau’s experience by following these suggestions:

  • Be alone.
  • Avoid anything that will distract you such as music or television.
  • Sharpen your senses!  Be aware of subtle sights, sounds, smells, and sensations.
    • Write for 15-20 minutes.  Record your observations, your feelings, and your thoughts.  Look for fresh, original ways to describe what you are seeing and experiencing.

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    Activity 3:  EXPERIMENTING WITH YOUR LIFE
    Background:  Thoreau referred to his years at Walden Pond as “an experiment in essential living.”  Near the beginning of his book Walden he states the purpose of his famous experiment: “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.”

    For his experiment, Thoreau gave up luxuries and comforts to live more deliberately, to be more aware of his world and his place in it.

    Ideas for Whole and Small Group Discussion:

  • Many people make plans to change and improve their lives.  What kinds of things do people want to change about themselves?
  • Have you ever resolved to change something in yourself?  Were you successful?  What challenges did you face?
    • Thoreau’s Words:
  • “How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of life?”
  • “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
  • “We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aides, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.”
  • “Our whole life is startlingly moral.  There is never an instant’s truce between virtue and vice.  Goodness is the only investment that does not fail.”
  • “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!  I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand…and keep your accounts on your thumb nail…Simplify, simplify.”
    • Writer’s Challenge:  What changes or improvements would you like to see in your life?  Design your own “experiment in living” wherein you will try out new ways of thinking and living as Thoreau did when he moved to the woods.  Following are some suggestions for living more “deliberately”:
  • Watch TV less; read and write more.
  • Get outside more often; walk, sit quietly in a natural setting, observe your surroundings.
  • Think and write about individuals whom you admire and write about the attributes that you especially respect.
  • Select a negative habit that you would like to give up.  Describe a positive habit that you could develop in its place.  Record your progress.  Discuss the challenges, temptations, and triumphs that you experience.
    • Write about your “experiment in living.”  Explain how you will live more deliberately.  Conduct your experiment over several days, and keep a careful record in your journal entries showing how you are changing and what you’re observing in yourself.

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    Activity 4:  SPENDING TIME WITH YOURSELF
    Background:  Thoreau earned the reputation of a hermit because of his choice to live alone in Walden Woods, but he was actually a very social person who liked conversing with people.  He especially enjoyed sharing Walden with visitors, particularly young people.

    He also valued his time alone and used it to hike around Concord, to observe the changes in the seasons, and to write in his journal.  For Thoreau, being alone was something to be treasured.

    Ideas for Whole and Small Group Discussion:

  • Do you think it’s important to spend time with yourself? Why or why not?
  • What can be gained from spending time alone?
  • Why do people sometimes avoid being by themselves?
    • Thoreau’s Words:
  • “I have, as it were, my own sun and moon and stars, and a little world all to myself.”
  • “I have a great deal of company in my house; especially in the morning when nobody calls.”
  • “I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude."
  • “In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty, poverty, nor weakness, weakness.”
    • Writer’s Challenge:  Select some time over the next few days when you will chose to be alone.  Schedule the time with yourself, and like Thoreau, use it for both inner and outer exploration.  Following are some suggestions for using your solitude:
  • Read.
  • Select one of Thoreau’s quotes on solitude and reflect on it.
  • Find a spot in a public place where you can sit apart and observe others.
  • Spend time in a natural setting.
    • Record your thoughts about your time alone, describing how you spent it.  Write a reaction to the book you’re reading, respond to a quote of Thoreau’s, record your observations of people or a natural place that inspires you.

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    Activity 5:  MEETING THE FUTURE
    Background:  Thoreau was an extremely accomplished person.  In addition to the many books and essays that he wrote over twenty-five years, he also produced a journal of fourteen volumes.  Among his accomplishments, he is also considered a political reformer, an abolitionist, a proponent of living in harmony with nature, and perhaps America’s first environmentalist.

    Thoreau is uniquely qualified to pass on advice about developing individual potential and becoming a productive citizen.

    Ideas for Whole Group and Small Group Discussion:

  • From what you have learned about Thoreau what qualities do you admire most in him?
  • Among his many accomplishments which do you see as the most important and significant?
  • In which areas of our modern twenty-first century life do you see the most need for his influence?  (Consider social, political, economic, and environmental issues.)
    • Thoreau’s Words:
  • “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.”
  • “Follow your genius closely enough and it will not fail to show you a fresh prospect every hour.”
  • “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! — I know of no reading of another’s experience so startling and informing as this would be.”
  • “The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening.  It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.”
  • “A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener.  So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts.  We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us.”
  • “I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
  • “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.  Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”
    • Writer’s Challenge: Select one of the quotes above and explore its meaning and its value in your life.  Develop your analysis by addressing the following:
  • Begin by paraphrasing the quote.  Rewrite it into a simple sentence that makes sense to you.
  • Explain the deeper meaning of the quote. Explore various ways the quote could be understood and interpreted.
  • How can Thoreau’s words be applied to your life?
  • Develop a few examples to show how his words could have an impact on your life choices or someone else’s.
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    Activity 6:  GOING PUBLIC WITH YOUR JOURNAL
    Writer’s Final Challenge:  Select one or more of your journal entries that you would like to share with the class.  Reread the “Writer’s Challenge” directions above to ensure that you have developed your topic fully.  Proofread it carefully and revise it until you feel it is sufficiently polished and edited for a larger audience.  Submit your journal entry with dates and in final draft form.

    Select an entry that you are comfortable sharing with a large audience!

    Warning: In order for this to work, you must have kept up with the earlier assignments.

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