Two American writers of one period on one theme
Grade 11 Reading Worksheet - Challenge Me
Circle the best answer.
Read this first
Living by One's Own Rule (two Transcendentalist writers)
Period note: [1] In the 1830s and 1840s a circle of writers around Concord, Massachusetts, later called the Transcendentalists, argued that each person could find truth through his or her own mind and through nature, rather than by following custom and the opinions of others. [2] Ralph Waldo Emerson published the essay “Self-Reliance” in his Essays of 1841. [3] Henry David Thoreau, his younger friend, lived for two years in a cabin he built on land Emerson owned beside Walden Pond, and published Walden in 1854.
From Emerson, “Self-Reliance”: [4] There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; … that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion;… [5] The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. [6] …Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. [7] …What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. [8] …It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
From Thoreau, Walden: [9] I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach,… [10] …Our life is frittered away by detail. … Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! [11] …If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
Word notes: [12] One's portion is one's share in life, and to front something is to face it squarely. [13] To live after an opinion is to live by it, and frittered away means wasted in small bits. [14] Sentences 9 and 10 come from the chapter “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”, and sentence 11 comes from the book's last chapter.
Sentence 1 says the Transcendentalists found truth through one's own mind and through nature. Ari asks: whose excerpt carries both parts, and why?
- Emerson's, because he trusts himself and goes into the woods to learn.
- Thoreau's, because he goes to the woods to learn and follows the music he hears.
- Emerson's, because he tells readers to ignore others, like a self-help book today.
- Thoreau's, because the note says the circle found truth through nature.
Luz proves this claim: “Both writers hold that a person must live by an inner rule, even against the crowd.” Which two sentences, one per writer, prove it?
- Sentences 5 and 10
- Sentences 8 and 11
- Sentences 7 and 8
- Sentences 1 and 11
Tala checks statements for the chart's last row. Which statement goes no further than both writers' words?
- Both warn that trusting oneself too far leads a person into envy and error.
- Both tell a person to follow an inner sense of what is right, not what others expect.
- Both tell their readers to leave town and go to live alone in the woods.
- Emerson values solitude, while Thoreau values keeping pace with his companions in daily life.
Jun fills the last row for one part of sentence 1, truth found through one's own mind. Which writer states it more directly, and why?
- Emerson, who gives it as a command in sentence 6, while Thoreau tells of his own choice.
- Thoreau, who commands readers in sentence 6 to trust themselves.
- Thoreau, because living off the grid shows self-trust better than any words.
- Emerson, because he published his essay in 1841, years before Walden.
Bo checks a statement about solitude for the last row. Which one goes no further than both writers' words?
- Both link a free life with solitude, though Emerson's great man keeps that freedom among others.
- Both say that real freedom of mind needs complete isolation from other people.
- Both treat solitude as a danger that weakens a person's judgment.
- Both writers moved into cabins in the woods to get away from the crowd.
One Voice and Many (two poets of the Civil War years)
Period note:
[1] Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson wrote in the years around the Civil War, yet readers often treat them as opposites in the way each faced the public.
[2] Whitman paid to print the first Leaves of Grass in 1855 and kept adding to it all his life; this poem first appeared in 1860, and the text comes from the 1891–1892 edition.
[3] Dickinson printed only a handful of poems in her lifetime; this one was first printed in 1891 by editors who changed some of her punctuation, and the text comes from that edition.From Whitman, “I Hear America Singing”:
[4] I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, / Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
[5] The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, / The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work, / The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
[6] The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands, / The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
[7] The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing, / Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
[8] The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, / Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.From Dickinson, Poems, Second Series:
[9] I'm nobody! Who are you? / Are you nobody, too?
[10] Then there 's a pair of us — don't tell! / They 'd banish us, you know.
[11] How dreary to be somebody! / How public, like a frog / To tell your name the livelong day / To an admiring bog!Word notes:
[12] Carols are joyful songs, mechanics are skilled workers who use their hands, and blithe means cheerful.
[13] A hatter makes hats, and a ploughboy is a young farmworker.
[14] The livelong day means the whole long day, a bog is soft, wet ground where frogs call, and the edition prints a space before 's and 'd.Sentence 3 says Dickinson printed only a handful of poems. Milo fills the last row: which poem's lines show a wish to stay out of public view, and why?
- Dickinson's, because she printed only a handful of poems in her lifetime.
- Dickinson's, because she would dislike posting her name online for strangers.
- Dickinson's, because sentence 11 calls being somebody dreary and public.
- Whitman's, because each singer sings alone where no one else can hear.
Zee proves this claim: “Each poet shows a self with something private that is its own.” Which two sentences, one per poet, prove it?
- Sentences 7 and 10
- Sentences 5 and 7
- Sentences 7 and 13
- Sentences 4 and 11
Kira checks statements for the chart's last row. Which statement about both poems goes no further than their words?
- Both poems pity ordinary people for being unknown and unheard.
- Both poets say that famous people are foolish and should be ignored.
- Whitman praises famous people, while Dickinson praises people no one knows.
- Both give worth to people who are not famous: ordinary workers and a cheerful nobody.
Esme proves this claim: “Each poem's speaker finds company: many voices for one, a single partner for the other.” Which two sentences, one per poet, prove it?
- Sentences 9 and 10
- Sentences 7 and 11
- Sentences 1 and 10
- Sentences 4 and 10
Noah adds a row on how each poem sounds. Which statement about the two poems' form goes no further than the texts?
- Whitman's long lines show that he wrote much faster than Dickinson did.
- Whitman questions the reader, while Dickinson speaks in plain statements.
- Whitman builds one long, piling list, while Dickinson speaks in short, quick exclamations.
- Both poets write in short rhyming lines that end in exclamations.
