"The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail"
"The American Scholar Oration"
Dead Poet's Society
"Resistance to Civil Government"
Selected poems by Walt Whitman
In this essay you will have some latitude to write on the topic that best interests you within tis unit. Whether you address Civil Disobedience, non-conformity, history of American thought, how society handles non-conformists, or any other pertinent topic, I want you to create a thesis. This can be a personal essay, including using the first person "I". The only requirement is to include quotes and passages from the works we have done in this unit.
SOME TOPICS TO CONSIDER:
*Not doing- refusal to go along
*Conditioning- conformity vs. non-conformity
*Universal Mind- non-personal god "an intelligence"
*Man's relationship to nature
*"Being" vs. "Living"
*The brotherhood of man
*The slave question
*Black/white relationships
*Injustice in the legal system
*Standard rigid education vs. curiosity, learning from experience
*America's war with Iraq