In this assignment, you’ll be combining some of the elements of writing we’ve been working on in the blogs—summary, analysis, and synthesis—with evaluating Walden for a particular audience in the 2020s. The goal is to both explain and evaluate the potential value of Walden for people working in the field that you are preparing for with your major. What does Walden have to teach? What are its potential limitations?
Without knowing it, you’ve done a lot of prewriting for this essay already. You may use insights (and writing!) from your discussion posts on Walden—I’ll ask you explicitly to comment on these ideas in our final week of discussion posts, so use those opportunities to work out ideas.
You can set this up like a blog post, and it can be similarly informal (though you’ll be turning it in via our usual link on Blackboard). You’ll want to establish and engage the specific audience for your essay right away. Then you will go through a similar process to the blog—you need to summarize Walden (the book itself, and not just Thoreau’s project)—this should be your summary based on your reading of the book; analyze it (What are the principal arguments? What does Thoreau use for evidence?); synthesize it with other texts or ideas in your field— how can you connect it?
The final step, the one beyond your typical blog, is to evaluate Walden in the terms I’ve listed above. To what extent might Walden be valuable for someone pursuing a career in that field?
Other than perhaps in the part about making connections to your prospective field, you do not need to do any research for this essay. (If you do use outside sources, they should be documented internally and in a Works Cited, of course.) The essay should highlight your engagement with and understanding of Walden as you’ve worked your way through it this semester.
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