The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail Study Questions



The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail Reading Assignment

Part I:

Give a properly formatted MLA citation for this play. (10 Points)

Answer the following questions using the introductory material in the text. (10 Points)

• Where and in what year was the initial production of the play?

• What year was the play first published?

Part II:

Write four responses to passages and/or quotations from The Night Thoreau Spent In Jail among those listed below. (30 Points each)

Respond to the following four prompts:

• Relate the passage/quotation to today’s world. How does the passage illuminate some aspect of our modern existence? How does the passage help you understand our world today?

• Pair the passage with another passage from the play or from the excerpts of Walden we read in class. Include that passage at the top of you response, which should discus the similarities or differences. Consider, among other elements, contradictions or paradoxes. (NOTE: Often, lines from Walden are used verbatim in the play. Feel free to discuss how the context of the line changes the meaning in your response.

• Given the notes from class and any other legitimate, reliable resource, explain how the passage reflects Transcendentalist thought.

• Complete a TWIST analysis on any quotation, and turn your analysis into a thoughtfully written-response.

You may choose which prompt to use to reflect on your chosen quotation, but you must answer all four prompts.

Additional Directions:

• The passages you choose should come from different parts of the text. Choose at least one from each act.

• Your responses should be between 250-350 words using the Word Count tool on MS Word (about a page). Responses that are too short will receive NO CREDIT, and I will stop reading at 350 words.

• Type and double-space all responses; use 11-12 point font.

1. A man who was--and is. (pg. vi)

2. A wit who rarely laughed. (vi)

3. A man who loved so deeply and completely that he seemed, sometimes, not to have loved at all. (vi)

4. Henry: You think I knew what they were doing to me? That's why I didn't cry. (5)

5. Waldo: There is an infinitude in the private man! If a single man plants himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him. (6)

6. Bailey: I missed part of that. I guess I'm not full awake. / Henry: Nobody is. If I ever met a man who was completely awake, how could I look him in the face? (10)

7. Henry: Our own school, John. No buildings. Break out of the classroom prison. All we need is the sky! (24)

8. Henry: Don't just remember what I said. Remember what I'm talking about. (25)

9. Henry: The only people who get anyplace interesting are the people who get lost. (27)

10. Henry: “You have missed the splendid variety of the show. There’s camel grass, candy grass, cloud grass, cow-quake…Nature didn’t stuff this meadow with identical blades of grass, each an imitation of another. They’re all different. Follow-the-leader is not the game we are playing here. Young lady, BE YOUR OWN MAN!” (27-28)

11. Henry: Do you know what we're doing, Miss Sewell? We're poisoning paradise, shearing off the woods, making the poor earth bald before her time. (33)

12. Henry: Miss Sewell. Why should your reach stop with your skin? When you transcend the limits of yourself, you can cease merely living -- and begin to BE! (35)

13. Mother: We should pray for John's soul. / Henry: John's soul can take care of itself. (46)

14. Ellen: I wonder if--if God lets us be hurt--so we can learn to transcend the pain…? In the boat, I didn't understand, really. But is it possible, Henry, that--even though he's stopped living, John continues to be? (48)

15. Henry: Retirement? What an absurd idea! Why spend the best part of your life earning money so that you can enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it? (53-54)

16. Henry (to Waldo about a list of jobs): Don't make a list. Things will tell me what needs to be done. (54)

17. Henry: You're wiser than most men who wear watches. I don't know what good it does to hang numbers on the hours. You can't count a river while it moves by you. The best thing to do is take off your clothes and go swimming in it. And when you feel the water all around you, then you're part of the total river--where it's been, where it is, and where it's flowing. Plunge in! (55-56)

18. Sam: I can understand how a man could forget--bein' as busy as you are--out there--uh-- writing about them birds and talkin' to the fish and whatever else it is you do out there by yourself. Naturally, it don't occur to you to think much about taxes. (58-59)

19. What law ever made men free? Men have got to make the law free. (61)

20. Henry: What the government of this country is doing turns my stomach! And if I keep my mouth shut, I'm a criminal. To my Conscience. To my God. (62-63)

21. If you call on me to pay for a rifle, Sam, it's the same as asking me to fire it! You're making me as much a killer as a foot-soldier who crashes across the border into far-away Mexico, charges into his neighbor's house, sets fire to it, and kills his children! (67)

22. Henry: The best huckleberries have a sly way…of being…exactly…where…you…are…standing! Here! The trick of it is: you have to know where to stand! (73)

23. Henry (to the runaway slave): You don't belong to anyone, sir. Except yourself. Least of all to me. Watch out--or you'll run right into what you're running away from…But there's slavery in the North, too. Every man shackled to a ten-hour-a-day job is a work slave. Don't let that happen to you, Mr. Williams. Keep free! (83)

24. Waldo: You complicate things all the more by rushing them. You're a naturalist, Henry. You understand the slow evolving of the seasons. It's the same with human relationships. You can't rush a sunrise. (85)

25. Waldo: Because I don't rant like Jeremiah, do you think I'm not outraged? I do what can be done! (87)

26. Henry: That's not enough. Do the impossible. That's what you tell people in your lectures.

27. Waldo (Squirming) You are a very difficult man. / Henry: The world is too full of easy men. (87)

28. Henry: I ask you to stop the violence. As for rebellion, do you think this country was hatched from a soft-boiled egg??? Look around Concord; what do you see? We have become everything we protested against! (87)

29. Waldo: And what are you doing about it, young man? You pull the woods up over your head. You resign from the human race. Could your woodchucks, with all their wisdom, have saved Henry Williams? Are your fish going to build roads, teach school, put out fires? (88)

30. Waldo: Henry, we must work within the framework of our laws. The end to this war--the condition of the blacks--this is the business of the President. And the Congress. (88)

31. Henry: When you buy a cabin ticket for an ocean passage, they give you the liberty of the whole ship. It's a privilege that should be used. Man shouldn't stay the whole voyage just in one place, below decks, no matter how dry and cozy it is. And warm. (100)

32. Henry: Sometimes the light gets so bright it puts your eyes out. And then it's just darkness all over again…But there is more day to dawn. The sun is only a morning star. (101)

Rubric:

Part I:

All or Nothing – You will receive full credit for correct answers, zero credit for incorrect answers.

Part II:

9 (30/30) – Responses earning a score of 9 meet the criteria for a score of 8 and, in addition, are especially thorough in their development and/or particularly impressive in their control of language.

8 (27/30) – Responses earning a score of 8 effectively analyze a selected quotation using one of the prompts provided. Their explanations are insightful and convincing. The prose demonstrates a consistent ability to control a wide range of the elements of effective writing with few, if any, errors in GUMS.

7 (24/30) – Responses earning a score of 7 meet the criteria for a score of 6 but provide a more thorough development and/or a more mature prose style.

6 (21/30) – Responses earning a score of 6 adequately analyze a selected quotation using one of the prompts provided. Their explanations are appropriate and sufficient. The writing may contain lapses in syntax or diction, but generally the prose is clear though with some errors in GUMS.

5 (18/30) – Responses earning a score of 5 analyze a selected quotation using one of the prompts provided. Their explanations may be uneven, inconsistent, or limited. The writing may contain lapses in syntax or diction, but it usually conveys the student’s ideas with some errors in GUMS.

4 (15/30) – Responses earning a score of 4 inadequately analyze a selected quotation using one of the prompts provided. Their explanations may be inappropriate or insufficient. The prose generally conveys the student’s ideas but may be less consistent in controlling the elements of effective writing with multiple errors in GUMS.

3 (12/30) – Responses earning a score of 3 meet the criteria for a score of 4 but demonstrate less success in analyzing a quotation using one of the prompts. These responses may show less maturity in control of writing.

2 (9/30) – Responses earning a score of 2 demonstrate little success in analyzing a selected quotation using one of the prompts provided. These responses may misunderstand the prompt or substitute a simpler task, such as summarizing the play or offering unrelated, inaccurate, or inappropriate explanations. The prose often demonstrates consistent weaknesses in writing, such as grammatical problems, a lack of development or organization, or a lack of control.

1 (6/30) – Responses earning a score of 1 meet the criteria for a score of 2 but are underdeveloped, especially simplistic in their explanation, and/or weak in their control of language

0 (0/30) – Indicates responses that are too short, from the wrong section of the reading, or do not follow other specified directions.

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