Introduction

In the last lesson, you were introduced to the term Transcendentalism, the American offshoot of Romanticism. Transcendentalism was a literary, philosophical, and political movement of the nineteenth century. Transcendentalists believed that there was a great connection between nature and the spirit. They believed that Truthwith a capital “T” goes beyond reason, and they valued the imagination and intuitionIntuition is when you just “know” something without being told.. In this lesson, you will be reading an essay called “Self–Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of the central figures of Transcendentalism.

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Before you read his essay, you will be learning the Previewing and Predicting Strategy.

One way to begin reading a text is to preview titles, subtitles, pictures, and other text structures and make a prediction about the topic and main idea of the text. Your predictions help you link what you already know to what you are reading. This skill will help you further your understanding of the text and will help you remember what you read.

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The following article from the Alabama Virtual Library provides an overview to Emerson's life and will help you with the lesson task. You can access the article by following the directions below.

  • Go to Alabama Virtual Library,
  • Select “Student Resources“ — “High School,”
  • Select “Literature Resources from Gale,”
  • Search for the phrase “Ralph Waldo Emerson,”
  • Select the “Biographhies” tab,
  • Select the entry from LitFinder,
  • Read the full text: “Ralph Waldo Emerson” from LitFinder Contemporary Collection.

 

This lesson is aligned with ACOS10 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text., ACOS11Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text., ACOS14 Analyze in detail how an author's ideas or claims are developed and refined by particular sentences, paragraphs, or larger portions of a text (e.g., a section or chapter)., ACOS23bUse narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, description, reflection, and multiple plot lines, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters., ACOS40aUse context (e.g., the overall meaning of a sentence, paragraph, or text; a word's position or function in a sentence) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase., ACOS40dVerify the preliminary determination of the meaning of a word or phrase (e.g., by checking the inferred meaning in context or in a dictionary)., and ACOS41aInterpret figures of speech (e.g., euphemism, oxymoron) in context and analyze their role in the text.. At the end of this lesson, student will be able to:

  • Use the Previewing and Predicting strategy,
  • Read and analyze the essay “Self–Reliance,”
  • Create a fictional character based on the analysis of “Self–Reliance.”

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