Name: _____________________________________ Date: ________________ Period: ______
Zigsaw & American Literature review:
In creating engaging lessons, providing information can become taxing for the kids if it’s not done in a
creative way. I’ve tried this with my mythology students. Every sections before reading has appeal and value
sections, historical components, etc. that needs to be shared. However, the zigsaw method would allow me to
not only read the section, but have students work on various components of a standard driven task related to my
lesson; these components can be driven by interest and even skill ability if you fuse a zigsaw with a tiered
lesson. Either way, a teacher can allow students to learn, teach, and grow in their lessons without having a
lecture style classroom.
I have attached a lesson I hope to implement on a tiered level for my 10th honors and 11th CP classes. I
incorporated a zigsaw component into the tiered lesson because all students needed to receive the information
provided from each group. I have designed sample tasks for each group in case the tiered lesson is not able to be
zigsawed, but a zigsaw quiz is given if time allows to do the group rotations. I am excited to see how best to
manage the situation as well. I think after ample time is given for each group to produce a task (1 class period),
I will have one member in each group stay and the rest will rotate around to other stations to be instructed by
the remaining teacher. I haven’t decided if I will require the group instructor for each station to change or
remain the same. One cycle would work, but I’m certain that if all students take ownership of the task, each will
have a varied teaching approach,
Management of below zigsaw for Walden:
Two min Zigsaw at station 1, two minutes at station 2, two minutes at station 3, and two minutes at station 4.
Then change instructor so that the first instructors are able to make it to all stations.
Repeat rotations.
Name: _____________________________________ Date: ________________ Period: ______
Zigsaw GROUP 1 Walden Questions –
Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer, so write a little
of everyone’s answer and discuss with zigsaw rotations your questions and
answers.
1. Thoreau doesn't really give us an explanation for why he leaves Walden Pond. Do you have any educated guesses?
Also, do you think he made the right choice? Explain in a short answer paragraph response.
2.
Walden Pond was only mile and a half away from the center of town. Would Thoreau's story be different if he
went somewhere really "wild," without a sign of civilization in sight? Why or why not? Discuss and each member
writes a response on his own paper.
3.
In the "Former Inhabitants; and Winter Visitors" chapter, Thoreau mentions some of the former inhabitants of
Walden Pond, many of whom are African American. If they were to write their own stories about living by Walden
Pond, what would they say?
4.
Walden inspired generations of writers and filmmakers. Think of some other stories or films that focus on
individuals in their relation to nature. How does reading Thoreau's novel help you understand these stories and films
better? Also, what new aspects of the American experience do these stories and films bring out that Thoreau didn't
explore? Some suggestions: Into the Wild, Dancing with Wolves, An Inconvenient Truth, and the television show Man
v. Wild. The Grey. The Edge.
Task: For a three-act plot analysis, put on your screenwriter’s hat.
Moviemakers know the formula well: at the end of Act One, the main
character is drawn in completely to a conflict. During Act Two, she is
farthest away from her goals. At the end of Act Three, the story is
resolved. Create a short rewrite of your interpretation of Thoreau’s
actions going to, staying at and leaving from Walden Pond. Be as
thorough as Thoreau! Create an outline for all three below act events
on the back of this paper; stay true to these events for quiz purposes.
[Billy Knows Best!]
Act II – Title? Main plot events according to Thoreau and
[“All the world's a stage,
And all the men and
women merely players;
They have their exits
and their entrances,
And one man in his time
plays many parts,
His acts being seven
ages.”
you.
– Shakespeare,
Act I – Title? Main plot events according to Thoreau and
you.
Thoreau sets up his cabin and fields next to Walden Pond.
Thoreau lives beside Walden Pond for two years.
Act III – Title? Main plot events according to Thoreau and
you.
Thoreau leaves Walden Pond and rejoins civilized society.
As You Like It
Name: _____________________________________ Date: ________________ Period: ______
Walden Setting Group 2: History in the Making!
Walden Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts, 1845-1847
Field Trip – I wish :/
Walden chronicles the two years Thoreau spent at Walden Pond, a rural area located just outside of Concord,
Massachusetts. If you're lucky enough to live in the area, you should probably just head on over to check it out.
It's actually been largely preserved thanks to conservation efforts inspired by the book. Because Thoreau is so
detailed in his description of the physical setting around him (understatement of the century, we know), we
won't try to top him. Instead, we'll focus on the historical setting of the book, something that Thoreau doesn't
talk about as explicitly.
Thoreau was only at Walden Pond for two years (from 1845-1847), but the book went through extensive
revisions before it was (finally) published in 1854. In that decade-ish, a lot of pretty important stuff went down
in the United States. There are hints here and there in Walden indicating that Thoreau hadn't stopped thinking
about the world when he left Walden Pond.
The Fugitive
Thoreau was strongly anti-slavery. Most notably, he objected to the government's Fugitive Slave Law, which
stated that any fugitive slave discovered in the North had to be returned to the South. As it turns out, Thoreau's
beloved state of Massachusetts was on his side. By 1843, Massachusetts had instituted a Personal Liberty Law.
They tried to get around the federal government's initial law by prohibiting any Massachusetts official from
assisting in the capture of a fugitive slave. So what does any of this have to do with Walden?
Well, slavery, as we know (if we were paying attention in history class), was quite a problem in the mid-19th
century. Thoreau actually viewed the Mexican-American War of 1845-1848 as an attempt by the United States
to acquire more territories which – being in the South – would become slave-holding states. So – and we
promise we're getting to the point – Thoreau's decision to retreat into Walden Pond may be viewed in part as a
response to the expansionist policies of the government.
Everyone's A Critic, Especially Thoreau
Thoreau was also concerned about the pace of industrialization in 19th-century America. Aren't we all? But
really, a lot of stuff was going on at this time that would totally change the face of America: the spread of the
railroad, the development of the Transatlantic Telegraph, urbanization, and an increase in industrial capacity (in
industries such as the textile industry). Some people saw these developments as signs of progress and
modernity, but Thoreau, always the contrarian, worried about the excessive commercialization and materialism
of society. Simply put, everyone was too worried about making money and too dazzled by technological
innovation to stop and think about their moral well-being.
In Walden, Thoreau describes a rural world where all of these signs of modernity are present, but not the center
of attention. The star of the show is the individual and his personal quest to answer some of the big questions
about the meaning of life.
Task: Create a poster board timeline that documents the main events during the time of Thoreau’s
Walden Pond experience. You ask for one member to go to the media center for paper while the rest plan
the timeline and collect information from scholarly sites using the classroom computer. MLA Works
Cited page included.
Name: _____________________________________ Date: ________________ Period: ______
The Rebel Group 3 –
When would you resist? “Civil Disobedience” by Henry
David Thoreau
Remember how Thoreau got arrested in "The Village" chapter? Of course you do, it's the most action-packed
part of the book and that’s why the put it in our textbook! : / Not really…Anyways, Remember what he got
arrested for? Hmmm. Maybe not. Well, the brief arrest was for his refusal to pay a poll tax in protest of the US
government. He elaborates on this experience in his famous essay "Civil Disobedience" (1849), where he
justifies not paying the taxes by asserting that he doesn't know where his money would be going.
Task: Read “Civil Disobedience” in the textbook, pg. _________________ and storyboard the events on the
handout I give to you. When we zigsaw, share them with the class. By retelling through image and dialogue
what Thoreau describes, explain what it means to resist the government. Do you agree or disagree? What
situations would cause you to be disobedient to the man-made law? Propose scenarios at your station and write
them down. Consider Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi. Read their short excerpts in the textbook as well for
ethical support for your claims. Citing and quoting the masters are always skills for great rebels!
Name: _____________________________________ Date: ________________ Period: ______
Group 4 Frame It : Antebellum Period Summary & Analysis
The Big Picture Frame: Who, What, When, Where & (Especially) Why
Much of antebellum culture can be understood as a response to the dynamic and rapidly changing social,
political, and economic context of the nineteenth century. Long before the Civil War, Americans were building
the industrial infrastructure, the competitive marketplace, the urban spaces, and the transportation system that
they would expand further and come to rely upon in the latter half of the century. They were grappling with
many changes: the rapid growth of cities in a world where most people still lived in areas of 2,500 people or
less and knew all or most of their neighbors; the emergence of hourly wage work conducted in large factories
regulated by clocks, whereas people had previously worked from home or in small shops and were apprenticed
to a trade. Above all, they continued to wrestle with the contradiction at the heart of the era: the existence of
chattel slavery in a country dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
The mass media in America emerged with the newspaper, which rapidly developed in the urban centers and
became an influential source of information for a broad audience in a highly literate society. On stages across
the North, whites in blackface (black makeup) performed “farces” and musical numbers designed to entertain
and amuse their raucous audiences, but with a set of underlying and oftentimes conflicting messages about race,
class, and stereotypes. When the country's transportation infrastructure rapidly expanded with new canals,
roads, and railroads, Americans became more mobile, and those who traveled for new job opportunities or to
strike it rich in the California gold country relied upon letter writing and the new technology of photography to
keep in touch with their loved ones. Ongoing industrialization, primarily in the North, led to an increasing
stratification of classes and a higher standard of living, especially for the middle class, who had fewer children
on average than families from poorer backgrounds, and who began developing a culture centered around
childcare and the home. These sometimes subtle but significant developments in communication, transportation,
entertainment, economy, and family structure during the nineteenth century all affected every aspect of people's
daily lives, from their work to their leisure time.
White men also crafted a political culture of avid partisanship and active participation in campaigning and
voting. As citizens of a democratic republic, Americans had long harbored a suspicion and dislike of
aristocracy, and their populist tendencies only increased with the birth of party politics and increased class
stratification. A cultural appeal to anti-elitism took the form of blackface minstrelsy, which impersonated and
ridiculed black people, but also gave whites a kind of release in the process. It was also embodied in plays that
praised the "noble savage" who white settlers were in the process of combating and, they hoped, eliminating
from existence. The noble savage was a sort of idealized, abstracted embodiment of all Indians, or at least the
"best" ones in the eyes of whites. This figure was a romanticized element of
nostalgia for the indigenous roots of the nation, which most whites implicitly
assumed were forever lost to the unstoppable spread of "civilization." Yet the
thousands of indigenous peoples across the nation were not so conveniently
disposed of in the decades to come, and slavery was not going anywhere, either.
Just as these forms of entertainment masked underlying problems in American life,
so the vibrant political culture obscured a partisan loyalty and spectacle that
undermined a truly independent and informed voting public, and the bourgeois
emphasis on sincerity paradoxically revealed an increasingly prevalent issue of
deception in an urbanizing and anonymous world.
Task: Share your information with the class in a Picture Frame format. One
member may go to the media center for cuts and paper. Define terms like
Antebellum, post images of the noble savage, and other important highlights.
The center picture (main topic to you for sharing) must be surrounded by the
framed events of history. Be creative, but thorough.
Name: _____________________________________ Date: ________________ Period: ______
Zigsaw Walden Quiz:
1. How far away from town was Walden? Give me the distance. 1 ½ Mile
2. Name a film that Walden has inspired.
3. Give a three sentence summary of Walden; think about the Acts from zigsaw group on film.
4. What city and state is Walden Pond near?
5. What was the Fugitive Slave Law? Did Thoreau support this law?
6. What does Antebellum mean?
7. What short story did Thoreau write while in jail a short time at Walden? Why was he arrested?
8. Name one civil activist that modeled his writing after Thoreau’s letter he wrote in jail.
9. What is a farce?
10. Was Walden written as a reaction to the Civil War?
Name: ___________________________________________ Date: ___________ Period:_______
Zigsaw Walden Quiz:
1. How far away from town was Walden? Give me the distance. 1 ½ Mile
2. Name a film that Walden has inspired.
3. Give a three sentence summary of Walden; think about the Acts from zigsaw group on film.
4. What city and state is Walden Pond near?
5. What was the Fugitive Slave Law? Did Thoreau support this law?
6. What does Antebellum mean?
7. What short story did Thoreau write while in jail a short time at Walden? Why was he arrested?
8. Name one civil activist that modeled his writing after Thoreau’s letter he wrote in jail.
9. What is a farce?
10. Was Walden written as a reaction to the Civil War?
Name: _____________________________________ Date: ________________ Period: ______
Zigsaw Walden Answers:
1. 1 ½ Mile
2. Into the Wild, Dancing with Wolves, An Inconvenient Truth, and the television show Man v. Wild. The Grey. The
Edge.
3. Thoreau sets up his cabin and fields next to Walden Pond. Thoreau lives beside Walden Pond for two
years. Thoreau leaves Walden Pond and rejoins civilized society.
4. Concord, Massachusetts
5. Any run away southern slave, if found in the north, was to be returned to the owner.
6. Antebellum – a culture experiencing the spread of the railroad, the development of the Transatlantic
Telegraph, urbanization, and an increase in industrial capacity (in industries such as the textile industry).
An industrial growth, slavery growth, and reduction of the old ways and neighborly traditions before the
civil war in 1860.
7.
“Civil Disobedience;” he refused to pay a tax that he didn’t know where or how it was to be used.
8. King, Jr “Letter from Birmingham Jail” or Gandhi “On Non-Violence”
9. Farces - whites in blackface (black makeup) performed farces and musical numbers designed to
entertain and amuse their raucous audiences, but with a set of underlying and oftentimes conflicting
messages about race, class, and stereotypes.
10. No. Written before.