Unit Four: Nature and the Frontier

What is our responsibility to nature? What role has the frontier played in defining the American?

• From Creating America: Ch4 – Research; from choosing a topic to using research tools to developing an essential question to organizing, drafting, selecting evidence, using in-text citations, and assembling a Works Cited
• From The Art of Styling Sentences: Ch. 3 – Sentences Grow

• SHS - Krakauer – Into the Wild – Is Krakauer’s presentation of Chris sympathetic? Is Chris an egotistical, miscalculating misanthrope or a modern-day transcendental hero?
• LC - Emerson – From Nature (1836 description)
• LC - Berry – “An Entrance Into the Woods” (1981 description)
• LC - Oates – “Against Nature” (1988 example)
• CA - Lewis and Clark – From The Journals of Lewis and Clark (1805 narrative/memoir)
• CA - Twain – From Roughing It (1872 narrative/memoir)
• CA - Turner – “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” (1893 argument)
• CA - Hofstadter – “The Thesis Disputed” (1949 argument)
• CA - Stegner – “Coda: Wilderness Letter” (1960 argument)
• CA - Abbey – “The Great American Desert” (1977 narrative/memoir) 
• CA - Limerick – “The Headline Frontier” (1994 analysis)

• Film – “Everest: The Death Zone” (1998)
• Film – “The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition” (2003)

• Short-Form Formal Essay – Argument: After reading Into the Wild, write an essay in which you argue whether or not Chris McCandless should be revered as a kind of prototypical American hero. Your essay may be enhanced by an explanation of the nature of heroism, transcendentalism, or both.
• Graded Socratic Seminar – Transcendentalism, the hero’s journey, and Chris McCandless
• Long-Form Formal Essay – Research: Identify a past or contemporary frontier (e.g. cure for cancer, genetically modify food supply, solve world hunger, cross the Pacific, summit Everest, hike across Antarctica, etc.). Identify the major explorers of this frontier - their goals, hopes, accomplishments, and failures. Explain the relevance/importance/promise of this frontier. Employ APA format.
• Long-Form Formal Essay peer response, editing activities, focused revision, polished final draft, reflection
• Multiple Choice Mock Exam – Individual and group work with rhetorical devices, citation of sources, and author’s purpose
• Timed Formal Responses (2) – Timed write; annotation/dissection of an AP prompt; analysis of AP essay scoring guidelines; investigation of anchor student essays; instructor keyword: Status Anxiety (w/s), “Silent Spring” (sans)
• Revision of and reflection on Timed Formal Response – for grade submission