For homework, Matthew read excerpts from Thoreau's "Walden". Today, I outlined the salient propositions advanced by Thoreau: Nature as an avenue to spiritual enlightenment and societal conformity as a hindrance to self development. We studied the text to find support for these propositions which I then placed on the board noting Thoreau's constant use of metaphors and allusions to argue his ideas. I emphasized some of Walden's most popular maxims such as "Simplify ,Simplify" and "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer". We discussed the type of "details" that Thoreau argues cause a man to "fritter away" his life as well as Thoreau's view on the "wealth" of poverty. I then distributed a compare and contrast essay addressing the view of Nature espoused by Jack London and Thoreau . We worked on forming a topic sentence, and I discussed how to prepare an essay outline. For homework,finish questions on the reading and prepare essay outline.