Slideshow Presentation By Lawrence Milliken

1. Henry David Thoreau Slideshow Presentation By Lawrence Milliken

2. ← Older posts ← Older posts The other day, as I considered the routine of my teaching life, I was wondering (again) about the thousand little decisions that occur in every class. What was I hoping to achieve? How might I get there? A teacher lives a class-period in a state of hyper-awareness, tracking (and, on a good day, weaving) both the threads of discussion and the simultaneous connections and disconnections happening all around him. It is far from a routine experience, even if it happens every day. “It is exhausting and startling,” I said to myself. And the word “startling” stirred familiar memory. Whenever my students reach Walden’s chapter Higher Laws, I gird myself for their responses. Already poked and prodded for some 200 hundred pages, they enter this chapter’s room to find that woods-loving, pine-needle-appreciating Henry has adopted the tone of a scold. Worse yet, he has decided to take on appetite and its physicality, areas of life that seventeen-year-olds are exploring with more than a little fascination. As he warms to his lesson, Thoreau writes the following: If the hunter has a taste for mud-turtles, muskrats and other such savage tidbits, the fine lady indulges a taste for jelly made of a calf’s foot, or for sardines from over the sea, and they are even. He goes to the millpond, she to her preserve pot. The wonder is how they, how you and I, can live this slimy beastly life, eating and drinking. “O, please,” I recall one student saying and dropping her book in disgust at this point. “What’s the alternative?” And in that moment, I thought, exactly; that’s exactly the question Thoreau wants, because he follows this wondering with one of Walden’s memorable, compact moments. “Our whole life is startlingly moral,” he writes. “What’s that mean?” I ask, and silence usually ensues. Into it I trickle this question: “Did you take a shower this morning?” A little nervous laughter. Teachers are weird, I see them thinking. “Okay,” says one. “I’ll bite; yes, I took a shower.” And in the discussion that follows we talk about warm water versus cold, about soap and its types, about whether or not shampoos have been animal tested on sensitive eyes. What swirls down the drain and where does it go? we ask. What about your lunch? What about your shoes? Your belt? Your bag? Your laptop? Questions stack up rapidly; it’s easy to imagine a point of paralysis. I notice that we’re all leaning forward over our tables and suggest that we sit back and take a deep breath. “Now I don’t think Thoreau wants us to drown in a welter of micro-decisions,” I say, “but he does want your initial question to be alive in our minds. What’s the alternative seems exactly on point.” “So there’s the connection with the central theme of being awake,” says another student. “You have to be fully awake to even think that there’s an alternative, and then to think what that alternative might be. There’s an awakeness about being startled.” Yes, there is; we wake from the complacency of routine, of herd-life, with a start; we begin to be individuals as a start. And that’s part of what I want for my students, and for myself. And you? What startles you? The other day, as I considered the routine of my teaching life, I was wondering (again) about the thousand little decisions that occur in every class. What was I hoping to achieve? How might I get there? A teacher lives a class-period in a state of hyper-awareness, tracking (and, on a good day, weaving) both the threads of discussion and the simultaneous connections and disconnections happening all around him. It is far from a routine experience, even if it happens every day. “It is exhausting and startling,” I said to myself. And the word “startling” stirred familiar memory. Whenever my students reach Walden’s chapter Higher Laws, I gird myself for their responses. Already poked and prodded for some 200 hundred pages, they enter this chapter’s room to find that woods-loving, pine-needle-appreciating Henry has adopted the tone of a scold. Worse yet, he has decided to take on appetite and its physicality, areas of life that seventeen-year-olds are exploring with more than a little fascination. As he warms to his lesson, Thoreau writes the following: If the hunter has a taste for mud-turtles, muskrats and other such savage tidbits, the fine lady indulges a taste for jelly made of a calf’s foot, or for sardines from over the sea, and they are even. He goes to the millpond, she to her preserve pot. The wonder is how they, how you and I, can live this slimy beastly life, eating and drinking. “O, please,” I recall one student saying and dropping her book in disgust at this point. “What’s the alternative?” And in that moment, I thought, exactly; that’s exactly the question Thoreau wants, because he follows this wondering with one of Walden’s memorable, compact moments. “Our whole life is startlingly moral,” he writes. “What’s that mean?” I ask, and silence usually ensues. Into it I trickle this question: “Did you take a shower this morning?” A little nervous laughter. Teachers are weird, I see them thinking. “Okay,” says one. “I’ll bite; yes, I took a shower.” And in the discussion that follows we talk about warm water versus cold, about soap and its types, about whether or not shampoos have been animal tested on sensitive eyes. What swirls down the drain and where does it go? we ask. What about your lunch? What about your shoes? Your belt? Your bag? Your laptop? Questions stack up rapidly; it’s easy to imagine a point of paralysis. I notice that we’re all leaning forward over our tables and suggest that we sit back and take a deep breath. “Now I don’t think Thoreau wants us to drown in a welter of micro-decisions,” I say, “but he does want your initial question to be alive in our minds. What’s the alternative seems exactly on point.” “So there’s the connection with the central theme of being awake,” says another student. “You have to be fully awake to even think that there’s an alternative, and then to think what that alternative might be. There’s an awakeness about being startled.” Yes, there is; we wake from the complacency of routine, of herd-life, with a start; we begin to be individuals as a start. And that’s part of what I want for my students, and for myself. And you? What startles you? Leave a Comment Filed under General, The Roost Leave a Comment Filed under General, The Roost No matter our age, September’s arrival suggests beginning again. Our years of schooling tab it as the true new year; for me, a teacher, the effect is stronger still – I begin again with new groups of students. All of this has me asking myself this perennial question: What does it take to teach and learn well? And as this question pools again at the start of my 40th year of teaching, I return to Thoreau’s question in the early going of No matter our age, September’s arrival suggests beginning again. Our years of schooling tab it as the true new year; for me, a teacher, the effect is stronger still – I begin again with new groups of students. All of this has me asking myself this perennial question: What does it take to teach and learn well? And as this question pools again at the start of my 40th year of teaching, I return to Thoreau’s question in the early going of Walden: Which would be most advanced at the end of a month, – the boy who had made his own jackknife from the ore which he had dug and smelted, reading as much as would be necessary for this, – or the boy who had attended the lectures on metallurgy at the Institute in the mean while and had received a Rogers’ penknife from his father? Which would be most likely to cut his fingers? Thoreau’s opinion is clear – real experience, hands-on work, trumps lecture and passive reception, and he would find many currently teaching who agree. Experiential education gains more converts each year. At my school a long history of devotion to the arts leads us in that direction – just as an artist Walden: Which would be most advanced at the end of a month, – the boy who had made his own jackknife from the ore which he had dug and smelted, reading as much as would be necessary for this, – or the boy who had attended the lectures on metallurgy at the Institute in the mean while and had received a Rogers’ penknife from his father? Which would be most likely to cut his fingers? Thoreau’s opinion is clear – real experience, hands-on work, trumps lecture and passive reception, and he would find many currently teaching who agree. Experiential education gains more converts each year. At my school a long history of devotion to the arts leads us in that direction – just as an artist makes art, so too a student makes art, so too a student makes learning. The challenge often lies in finding and fitting experience into the uniform time-boxes that form a school’s schedule. How can I make our work real rather than received, I wonder. Here’s one attempt from this time last year: 9/4/11: The e-mails arrived last evening and this morning: Next Monday’s assignment includes the intentionally vague request that each student make a map of Thoreau’s essay Walking; in class, this request passed without comment and everyone shuffled off to the next class. “What do you mean, want?” chorused the four e-mails. “Okay,” I wrote back, “I’ll outline (vaguely, still) what sort of visual representation a map might offer, but I want your take, not mine.” Shuffle shuffle, Monday arrives and they do too. We talk over passages; we speculate, we formulate ideas in small groups, we go outside and consider the act of walking, it locomotion. The class period comes to an end. “So,” I say with the sort of teacher-cheeriness that makes students roll their eyes, “will your maps get me from here to there?” And amid a rustling of paper, I collect their maps. Most are flat single sheets, a few are rolled, and one weighs nearly a pound. I sit in the now-empty classroom and prepare to be guided. The many drawings offer good distillation of Thoreau’s essay and a number of its key points; as I read and scan on, I am happy to be in their territory. I unfurl the heavy scroll and along its meandering ink lines and amid its drawings, I find the sources of its weight – glued to the map are twigs, pine needles, a stone and, where the paper was once wet, it wrinkles. The map uses a “tawny grammar,” a wild expression, and near the end it says, “Go see for yourself.” I’m out the door in under a minute. makes learning. The challenge often lies in finding and fitting experience into the uniform time-boxes that form a school’s schedule. How can I make our work real rather than received, I wonder. Here’s one attempt from this time last year: 9/4/11: The e-mails arrived last evening and this morning: Next Monday’s assignment includes the intentionally vague request that each student make a map of Thoreau’s essay Walking; in class, this request passed without comment and everyone shuffled off to the next class. “What do you mean, want?” chorused the four e-mails. “Okay,” I wrote back, “I’ll outline (vaguely, still) what sort of visual representation a map might offer, but I want your take, not mine.” Shuffle shuffle, Monday arrives and they do too. We talk over passages; we speculate, we formulate ideas in small groups, we go outside and consider the act of walking, it locomotion. The class period comes to an end. “So,” I say with the sort of teacher-cheeriness that makes students roll their eyes, “will your maps get me from here to there?” And amid a rustling of paper, I collect their maps. Most are flat single sheets, a few are rolled, and one weighs nearly a pound. I sit in the now-empty classroom and prepare to be guided. The many drawings offer good distillation of Thoreau’s essay and a number of its key points; as I read and scan on, I am happy to be in their territory. I unfurl the heavy scroll and along its meandering ink lines and amid its drawings, I find the sources of its weight – glued to the map are twigs, pine needles, a stone and, where the paper was once wet, it wrinkles. The map uses a “tawny grammar,” a wild expression, and near the end it says, “Go see for yourself.” I’m out the door in under a minute. Leave a Comment Filed under General, The Roost Leave a Comment Filed under General, The Roost Henry David Thoreau’s Occupation • Henry was an American author, naturalist and philosopher. • You’ve decided to devote a sizeable part of the upcoming issue of Appalachia to Thoreau and his legacy. What drew you to take such an in-depth look at him? I wanted to play up the difference between modern sensibilities and Thoreau’s, laying bare how strange it feels for a modern person to think and act like Thoreau. • Now that you’ve reached the final stages of preparing the issue, what shape has the Thoreau section taken? Three of our Concord-based members of the Appalachia Committee have written about Thoreau’s legacy in his hometown. Lucille Stott has written the anchor piece of journalism about Thoreau’s life in Concord, the restoration of his birthplace as Thoreau Farm, and the throngs of readers and scholars who read his papers at the library. Parkman Howe has written about the house where Thoreau died and some townspeople’s perception of him as a ghostly figure. Sandy Stott has written about teaching high school students to meet Thoreau as a writer speaking directly to them, rather than as a famous literary figure. Kristen Laine has chronicled her attempt to ramble through the woods and fields of her home property like Thoreau. The issue also includes an essay by Heather Stephenson about circumnavigating Walden Pond with her young daughter, flower ID book in hand, and a short piece about Thoreau’s botanical (mostly) observations on New Hampshire’s Mount Monadnock by University of New Hampshire professor Peter J. Thompson. • As you gathered response and commitment from various writers, how did your plans for the issue change? In other words, what major themes have emerged? I thought the issue would highlight how difficult it is to live and think as Thoreau did, now that it’s 2012. I was wrong. I have realized that modern people who read and consider Thoreau are not trying him on in a shallow way; many writers respect him deeply and understand his attitudes. • How has working with the issue’s various writers and their articles changed your sense of Thoreau and his ongoing effect? My original assignment to Kristen Laine was: go camping, Thoreau style. Don’t move around too much. Sit and contemplate a set of wild flowers, that sort of thing. But Kristen wanted to stay close to home and ramble daily over the same terrain, noting what was growing and what wasn’t, as Thoreau did in his later years. She proves in her piece that…. well, I’ll let you read it. • What surprised you as you worked on this issue? That I no longer feel Thoreau was eccentric in any way. • Thoreau famously went to Walden to observe and think and write, but many point to his daily walks as the key contemplative practice that informed his writing. Where do you go to find your questions and begin to forge answers to them? I started walking in the woods as a way to write more honestly about 15 years ago, after my father died. I already knew at that point that getting onto a forest path, alone, helped me sort out what I thought. But I was still in the mode of putting off the time in my life when I would act on those thoughts.The day my father died, he told me about a conversation he’d had with someone at work, who had asked him if he had ever written stories. “No, but my daughter is trying to,” he said to her.At that point I was waiting for the rest of my life—for the calling (this was 17 years ago) to write something other than newspaper articles—to happen to me. My father held up a Newsweek magazine cover about people who were fried by work. He raised his eyebrows.That night, he died, and in the days after, I felt this tremendous push, something to do with him and my interpretation of him, to start writing stories. I knew I was a writer, but I was not writing from my own ideas. Some years before all this, I had met myself in the mountains. My husband and I and two friends had quit our jobs and sublet our apartments to hike from Georgia to Maine for four and a half months. I was 28. This was the first time I had ever broken from society’s expectations, and, tame as it was, it liberated me to be homeless for that period.I needed to do that then, and I still need to walk every day now, because I am one of those people who tends toward trying to please the world. I smile at people who are rude. I blush at pushy clerks. Walking alone takes me to who I really am and makes it possible to write originally. If the prose isn’t supposed to smile, it doesn’t. But I have to trudge through the woods first. • The theme of Thoreau Farm is “Living Deliberately,” and visitors to the house often leave notes about what those words mean to them. Has this issue of Appalachia given you any new insights about what it means to live deliberately today? I do think the issue will remind readers that we must try ever harder to live simply and deliberately in this age of distraction. We must take command of computers and the Web, remembering they are tools only. We must resist the urge to research how everybody else does something—whether it be gathering firewood, building a shanty, writing a poem, or making spaghetti—before we attempt it ourselves. We must stop buying things to solve problems that aren’t material. • In the long run, Thoreau placed his hope for the future and faith in a seed. Where do you find hope as you survey and write about the challenges we face? I find hope in birds that return year after year to their nesting grounds and do the same things, bravely, minute after minute. They never give up. • What do have you in mind for future issues of Appalachia? Well, I’m thinking about an issue with a few articles about women’s difficulties (and the solace they find) in the mountains. I want to continue my mission of nurturing new writers alongside the accomplished writers I recruit to the pages. I’d like to gather narratives of water journeys and maybe devote an issue exploring the similarities between rainforests and New England/British Columbia forests. • You’ve decided to devote a sizeable part of the upcoming issue of Appalachia to Thoreau and his legacy. What drew you to take such an in-depth look at him? I wanted to play up the difference between modern sensibilities and Thoreau’s, laying bare how strange it feels for a modern person to think and act like Thoreau. • Now that you’ve reached the final stages of preparing the issue, what shape has the Thoreau section taken? Three of our Concord-based members of the Appalachia Committee have written about Thoreau’s legacy in his hometown. Lucille Stott has written the anchor piece of journalism about Thoreau’s life in Concord, the restoration of his birthplace as Thoreau Farm, and the throngs of readers and scholars who read his papers at the library. Parkman Howe has written about the house where Thoreau died and some townspeople’s perception of him as a ghostly figure. Sandy Stott has written about teaching high school students to meet Thoreau as a writer speaking directly to them, rather than as a famous literary figure. Kristen Laine has chronicled her attempt to ramble through the woods and fields of her home property like Thoreau. The issue also includes an essay by Heather Stephenson about circumnavigating Walden Pond with her young daughter, flower ID book in hand, and a short piece about Thoreau’s botanical (mostly) observations on New Hampshire’s Mount Monadnock by University of New Hampshire professor Peter J. Thompson. • As you gathered response and commitment from various writers, how did your plans for the issue change? In other words, what major themes have emerged? I thought the issue would highlight how difficult it is to live and think as Thoreau did, now that it’s 2012. I was wrong. I have realized that modern people who read and consider Thoreau are not trying him on in a shallow way; many writers respect him deeply and understand his attitudes. • How has working with the issue’s various writers and their articles changed your sense of Thoreau and his ongoing effect? My original assignment to Kristen Laine was: go camping, Thoreau style. Don’t move around too much. Sit and contemplate a set of wild flowers, that sort of thing. But Kristen wanted to stay close to home and ramble daily over the same terrain, noting what was growing and what wasn’t, as Thoreau did in his later years. She proves in her piece that…. well, I’ll let you read it. • What surprised you as you worked on this issue? That I no longer feel Thoreau was eccentric in any way. • Thoreau famously went to Walden to observe and think and write, but many point to his daily walks as the key contemplative practice that informed his writing. Where do you go to find your questions and begin to forge answers to them? I started walking in the woods as a way to write more honestly about 15 years ago, after my father died. I already knew at that point that getting onto a forest path, alone, helped me sort out what I thought. But I was still in the mode of putting off the time in my life when I would act on those thoughts.The day my father died, he told me about a conversation he’d had with someone at work, who had asked him if he had ever written stories. “No, but my daughter is trying to,” he said to her.At that point I was waiting for the rest of my life—for the calling (this was 17 years ago) to write something other than newspaper articles—to happen to me. My father held up a Newsweek magazine cover about people who were fried by work. He raised his eyebrows.That night, he died, and in the days after, I felt this tremendous push, something to do with him and my interpretation of him, to start writing stories. I knew I was a writer, but I was not writing from my own ideas. Some years before all this, I had met myself in the mountains. My husband and I and two friends had quit our jobs and sublet our apartments to hike from Georgia to Maine for four and a half months. I was 28. This was the first time I had ever broken from society’s expectations, and, tame as it was, it liberated me to be homeless for that period.I needed to do that then, and I still need to walk every day now, because I am one of those people who tends toward trying to please the world. I smile at people who are rude. I blush at pushy clerks. Walking alone takes me to who I really am and makes it possible to write originally. If the prose isn’t supposed to smile, it doesn’t. But I have to trudge through the woods first. • The theme of Thoreau Farm is “Living Deliberately,” and visitors to the house often leave notes about what those words mean to them. Has this issue of Appalachia given you any new insights about what it means to live deliberately today? I do think the issue will remind readers that we must try ever harder to live simply and deliberately in this age of distraction. We must take command of computers and the Web, remembering they are tools only. We must resist the urge to research how everybody else does something—whether it be gathering firewood, building a shanty, writing a poem, or making spaghetti—before we attempt it ourselves. We must stop buying things to solve problems that aren’t material. • In the long run, Thoreau placed his hope for the future and faith in a seed. Where do you find hope as you survey and write about the challenges we face? I find hope in birds that return year after year to their nesting grounds and do the same things, bravely, minute after minute. They never give up. • What do have you in mind for future issues of Appalachia? Well, I’m thinking about an issue with a few articles about women’s difficulties (and the solace they find) in the mountains. I want to continue my mission of nurturing new writers alongside the accomplished writers I recruit to the pages. I’d like to gather narratives of water journeys and maybe devote an issue exploring the similarities between rainforests and New England/British Columbia forests. Leave a Comment Filed under General, The Roost Leave a Comment Filed under General, The Roost Welcome to the relaunch of The Roost, the Thoreau Farm Trust blog begun by Wen Stephenson earlier this year. Wen, an accomplished writer and journalist, agreed to conduct a series of interviews for Thoreau Farm to launch our site, and we are grateful for his wonderful work and for the many visitors who enjoyed it and left comments. We have archived Wen’s series here so you can read them at your leisure should you have missed them earlier. Please take a look! Welcome to the relaunch of The Roost, the Thoreau Farm Trust blog begun by Wen Stephenson earlier this year. Wen, an accomplished writer and journalist, agreed to conduct a series of interviews for Thoreau Farm to launch our site, and we are grateful for his wonderful work and for the many visitors who enjoyed it and left comments. We have archived Wen’s series here so you can read them at your leisure should you have missed them earlier. Please take a look! We at Thoreau Farm hope you will be able to visit the birth house, where you can step into the room where Henry was born, have a picnic on the expansive grounds, and learn more about the influence Thoreau has had on people around the world. But until you can come by, we hope you will continue to enjoy The Roost, which seeks to promote Thoreau Farm as a “Birthplace of Ideas” to explore ways of “living deliberately,” whoever and wherever we are. We at Thoreau Farm hope you will be able to visit the birth house, where you can step into the room where Henry was born, have a picnic on the expansive grounds, and learn more about the influence Thoreau has had on people around the world. But until you can come by, we hope you will continue to enjoy The Roost, which seeks to promote Thoreau Farm as a “Birthplace of Ideas” to explore ways of “living deliberately,” whoever and wherever we are. Continue reading Continue reading → → 7 Comments Filed under General, The Roost 7 Comments Filed under General, The Roost Amy Ragus Amy Ragus Natural Encounters: On and off the trails at Fruitlands and Walden As an extension to her current exhibition at Fruitlands Museum, Amy Ragus will be showing several photo-collages at Thoreau Farm from July 4 – July 22. Ragus’ photo-collages have been called “kaleidoscopic mosaics” that seek to capture particular moods, feelings and movements of the seasons. Having photographed the seasons at Walden for many years, Ragus includes images of Natural Encounters: On and off the trails at Fruitlands and Walden As an extension to her current exhibition at Fruitlands Museum, Amy Ragus will be showing several photo-collages at Thoreau Farm from July 4 – July 22. Ragus’ photo-collages have been called “kaleidoscopic mosaics” that seek to capture particular moods, feelings and movements of the seasons. Having photographed the seasons at Walden for many years, Ragus includes images of Continue reading Continue reading → → Comments Off Filed under Arts, News and Events Comments Off Filed under Arts, News and Events ← Older posts ← Older posts

3. Henry David Thoreau’s Contributions to Society • He is best known for his essay Civil Disobedience, after spending a night in jail for not paying the poll tax. • He also wrote two books, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849), which was trying a transcendentalist lifestyle, and Walden (1854), which was an experimental journal on Walden Lake.

4. Facts About Him • He had a brother named John • He and his brother tried to marry the same woman, but to no avail. • He was friends with Ralph Waldo Emerson, who peaked his interest in writing.

5. Works Cited • Thoreausociety.org • sense-of-place-concord.blogspot.com • Thoreaufarm.org • http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpn/4080457128/sizes/o/in/photostream/