What Would Thoreau Do (WWTD)?

I had so much fun talking about Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” today with my students that I thought I’d post my lesson plan.

 

We started with this fun recap of Thoreau’s ideas, from the classroom-pleasing School of Life.

 

With that in mind, I assigned each student three pages of “Civil Disobedience” to comb through for pithy statements and witty comebacks in the text that might be equally applicable in today’s political climate as in Thoreau’s.

 

Then, the game got started: “What Would Thoreau Do?” (or, really, say):

Students were asked to respond to current news clips with quotes from their assigned pages of Thoreau’s text.

 

Because I couldn’t bear to subject myself, or my students, to the White House’s actual press conferences, we got our news from the late shows:

 

Steven Colbert on the refugee ban and Steve Bannon, and Samantha Bee on Sally Yates and the appointment of campaign donors to the government.

 

Pausing after each topic for Thoreauvian responses, we laughed, we (nearly) cried, and even some of my quietest students were up to the task of embodying Thoreau.