A Synthesis Discussion of Transcendentalist Perspectives, Styles, and Implications

TRANSCENDENTALISTS UNITE!  

Goal: 
To foster inquiry and connections across various prompts that we have read (including Krakauer's article from Outside Magazine, "Into the Wild"; essays and letters from Thoreau to Emerson and Whitman; poems from Emily Dickinson, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson; two texts below, Whitman's "Song of Myself, #52" and Abrahman Lincoln's "The Gettysburg Address."

Perspectives:

You will draw one of these perspectives to represent in the fishbowl discussion, and you will need to prepare your perspective to represent her or him accurately!  

- Margaret Fuller

- Frederick Douglass

- Henry David Thoreau

- Walt Whitman

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

- Emily Dickinson

- Chris McCandless

Questions:

What do you think is most important in life?

Why are people unhappy?

What type of quest do you think is meaningful?

What would you say if you were being wiretapped without your knowledge, as with the NSA?

What is your position on hydraulic fracturing (fracking)?

What do you think of Frederick Douglass?

To what extent do you think that firing Mr. Keating from Welton Academy was justified by his actions and the circumstances of Neil Perry’s death?

What do you think is important about the Gettysburg Address?

Why does crime happen, as with Perry Smith?  

Sources:

Poetry Packet (various sources, including Poetry Out Loud website!)

Transcendentalist letters, essays (example)

Walden pages (example)

Into Thin Air article (open source link)

Preparation, part 1:

Before the Fishbowl…. the Writer’s Basic Information

 Who are you portraying?

What are some key words or phrases that are unique to your person?

What would you person think about politics, love, relationships, meaning of life, etc.?

Preparation, part 2.  

Find two quotations!!  Be ready to question them as well as other writers!

Quotation from your writer… Write two inferring questions here that your writer might ask… Write a question that ANOTHER writer might ask about that quotation.

Quotation from your writer… Write two inferring questions here that your writer might ask… Write a question that ANOTHER writer might ask about that quotation.

During Discussion

Your follow-up questions during the discussion, written here:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Appendices -- two additional sources! 

“Song of Myself” #52 (final stanza)

Walt Whitman

Directions: React to this final stanza from the perspective of your writer.  What do you think is the tone of this piece?  Does it match your own experiences and philosophy?

52

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,

I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,

It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds,

It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,

I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,

If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,

But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,

And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,

Missing me one place search another,

I stop somewhere waiting for you.

---

Lincoln at Gettysburg

Directions: In his book, Lincoln at Gettysburg: Words that Remade America, writer Gary Wills views this text through several different lenses to comment on its significance.  One lens is that of transcendentalism.  For one thing, at this time, connection to eternal ideas was in vogue as was the idea of a pastoral (as opposed to an urban) cemetery park.  Dedicating a cemetery battlefield for 50,000 would require resolve and vision beyond what words can typically offer.  Add to that the dire circumstances of the Civil War in progress.  

As you read the text, consider what rhetorical choices Lincoln makes. What can you infer were his rhetorical aims?  From your writer’s perspective, what is most significant about this speech?

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln

November 19, 1863

Post Discussion:
1.) Why do you think Transcendentalism is important in the American Rhetorical tradition?

2.) To what extent do you find their ideas worthwhile?  Naive?  Worth noting?  Why?

3.) How would you rate your contributions to the class’s discussions today?  To what extent were you prepared?  Were you ready to take a risk and ask a question spontaneously?

	A	B	C
READING— Show your careful reading of the essays/poets by referring to them with quotations. Notes were prepared. You showed signs of preparation and thinking in advance.	All readings are carefully and insightfully annotated. Questions for discussion reveal forethought and insight.	All readings are carefully annotated. Questions for discussion reveal preparation.	All readings are annotated. Questions and notes are prepared.
ENGAGEMENT—You came to class prepared ready to engage in the topic substantially.	Student takes a leadership orientation.	Student takes an active participant’s orientation.	Student takes a passive orientation.
QUESTIONING THE FISHBOWL You asked questions and made observations when you were in the audience of the fishbowl.	Follow-up questions and interactions reveal leadership and attentiveness.	Follow-up questions and interactions reveal active engagement.	Follow-up questions and interactions reveal participation, if at times passive.