Redkudu

· How is an individual’s character defined?
· How does an individual’s character influence society?
· Why is an individual’s character important?

This is a great challenge. I'm not as well read in the literature of this period as I'd like to be, but just looking at my collection of readings, I can think of four that would allow students to examine how the authors addressed these issues at the time, and then to compare those works to their own opinions/ideas about the answers to these questions.

I think I'd look at Self Reliance for addressing the first and third questions. Civil Disobedience for the second, especially the section where Thoreau creates 3 categories of people and the ways in which they serve the state, and discussing his own act of civil disobedience and the realizations his night in jail brought him about character and spirit. You could even talk about perceptions of religion and faith and bring in Dickinson's "Some keep the Sabbath going to church..." poem. Whitman's I Hear America Singing could probably be worked in there, and is always a good one to have students read so that the Langston Hughes reply later makes sense.

I know from having finished my 2nd 6 weeks planning for English III that we are going to spend a lot of time with the Declaration of Independence and growing ideals of individuality and personal responsibility/rights that came about from it, before we swoop into transcendentalism, especially Self Reliance.

The one thing I don't have right now that I wish I did was some sort of very contemporary companion piece to any of these, which either reflects or re-imagines the thoughts and ideas of the time. Any ideas on that?