Transcendentalists! 1840-1855

This period coincides with the Romantic period and stresses:

• INDIVIDUALISM
• INTUITION
• NATURE
• SELF RELIANCE

My Antonia by Willa Cather.

• This novel is full of beautiful imagery as Cather has Jim recall his life with Antonia and in doing so, recalls the awesome land of the Nebraska prairie.

• This novel also deals with immigration, race, borders and boundaries.

• For extension: we will study the concept of immigration  (into a country, into a place, into a group) and analyze similarities and differences in such journeys as one "comes of age". These cites refer to issues of mexican immigration:

• http://www.migrationinformation.org/feature/display.cfm?ID=208
• http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/score_lessons/immigration_debate/
• http://lcweb2.loc.gov/learn/features/immig/mexican.html

CREATIVE EXTENSION CHOICES!!!  CHOOSE ONE -  
DUE:  MONDAY 2/3/14

• Choose a chapter/section of My Antonia and mimic its narrative structure using issues connected to your choice of  immigration topic in today's time. Includes a rationale writing. 

• Choose a poem by an American poet and mimic its poetic structure to capture the many emotions connected to immigration, race, borders and/or boundaries. Includes a rationale writing.

• Create a visual map of Jim's journey to self, using textual landmarks along his journey. Includes a rationale writing.

• Essay:  How does the novel parallel Jim's reaction to his environment with his coming of age?  In other words, explore how Cather uses the land(scape) to mirror Jim's journey to self.  

                       --------------------------------------------------------

Part 2

Ralph Waldo Emerson: His writing helps establish philosophy of individualism

• See Emerson and "Nature" and Emerson and "Self Reliance"

• http://transcendentalism-legacy.tamu.edu/authors/emerson/nature.html
• http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16643/16643-h/16643-h.htm#SELF-RELIANCE
• Self Reliance Extension

ESSENTIAL QUESTION:  Who is the American reflected in Emerson's essays?

Henry David Thoreau: He resisted MATERIALISM and chose simplicity and individualism

• View/Read Walden Pond: http://thoreau.eserver.org/walden02.html#seven
• View watercolors of Walden Pond:
• http://www.norcov.com/brushworks/walden.htm
• http://pubs.usgs.gov/wri/wri014137/pdf/report.pdf
• http://hoardedordinaries.wordpress.com/tag/goose-pond/

ESSENTIAL QUESTION:  Who is the American reflected in Thoreau's  essays?

Begin reading Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons.

See also:
Walt Whitman: "Song of Myself", "I Hear America Singing", "
                        "O Captain My Captain", film Dead Poet's Society.
William Cullen Bryant: "To a Waterfowl", "Thanatopsis"
Edwin A. Robinson : "Richard Cory"
Frost:  "Birches"

CREATIVE ASSIGNMENT: THE TRANSPARENT EYEBALL PROJECT!

• Based on our reading of My Antonia, and from Emerson's "Nature" and "Self Reliance", and Ellen Foster we will integrate ideas of transcendental philosophy by observing, reflecting and recording our experience of ourselves in nature. 

• ASSIGNMENT:Please create your individual transparent eyeball which reflects your "unified" self when you are at one with nature. 

• Photographs should CAPTURE those momentary glimpses of beauty that nature provides -  sunrise, sunset, twilight, a frozen pond, reflections of dew on a leaf, the trees against the sky.   

• EYEBALL includes:  photographs and  1-2 Poems (that speak to transcendental philosophy)  chosen from the literature book.
• Use excerpts from the poems and position photographs to incorporate into the "eyeball" to achieve "your" eye view! 

DUE 2/14/14***

----------------------------------------------

Part 3

• "Civil Disobedience" http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil.html
• View excerpt of Mahatma Ghandi's 'civil disobedience'.
• Compare Gandhi with Thoreau
• Read MLK's "Letter from the Birmingham Jail".
• Read poem "Ballad of Birmingham" by Dudley Randall.
• Compare King to Thoreau to Ghandi