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Timothy Jordan

Storer

ENG 3H: American Literature Block 5

22 January 2020

Socratic Reflection on Emerson and Thoreau

My group for the Socratic circle discussed Emerson’s Self-Reliance and Thoreau’s

Walden. In our discussion about Self-Reliance, we discussed which quotes from his work were

the most persuasive for his argument. For Walden, our circle discussed how we thought the

phrase “Simplify, Simplify” could be applied to our society today. One of the main conclusions

we drew was that a vast majority of things people have are not necessary for survival and are just

luxuries. This, we believe, would cause Walden to say “Simplify, simplify.” Our group had

various aspects that made our Socratic seminar flow smoothly and well. Andres, the facilitator,

did an outstanding job at keeping the discussion running smoothly by adding his own points

whenever it was necessary. He also chose thought-provoking questions which a majority of our

circle could answer. Another strong portion of our discussion was our use of quotes. When

discussing Emerson’s work, members such as Itzel, Sophia Brown, and others contributed

concrete details from the text that helped explore the various persuasive phrases that Emerson

used in his literature. All in all, I believe I group had a successful and smooth Socratic seminar.

I think that I had a decent contribution to the Socratic seminar. Participating in group

discussions is not my strong suit, so based on this I feel like I did alright. I contributed two times

to the discussion. The first was regarding Emerson’s Self Reliance where I discussed how I

thought Emerson’s use of the word “I” in the quote, “What I must do, is all that concerns me, not

what the people think” (Emerson) made this specific sentence relatable to the reader. I spoke up
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a second time when we were discussing Thoreau’s Walden, where I reinforced the idea that

many of the materialistic things in our lives are not necessity and that Thoreau would say that we

needed to simplify our lives. In the next Socratic, I would like to try and facilitate a discussion

and if not, I would like to prepare more answers to questions so I can participate more.

If I were writing an AWP on Emerson or Thoreau, my thesis would be “Emerson’s Self-

Reliance and Nature are more persuasive than Thoreau’s Walden and Civil Disobedience

because Emerson uses more concise sentences, religious references, and thought-provoking ideas

that are relational to the reader.”

In my essay, I would provide evidence that Emerson’s writing was not as long-winded as

Thoreau and contained more concise sentences. Because of this, the reader stays interested in the

text and it is thus more persuasive. My second body paragraph would discuss how Emerson uses

his religious background to relate God to his work Nature and how his ideas of seeing God in

nature would appeal to people. Finally, my third paragraph would cover the various sentences

which Emerson uses that provoke thought in the readers mind and help them relate more to what

Emerson is trying to convey,

The portion of text that we read that I most relate to which I would also talk about in my

imaginary essay is Emerson’s ideas about nature. In my life, I have come to realize how beautiful

nature can be and I often take time to go off on my own to walk around and just experience what

the world has to offer. One of my favorite hobbies from when I was a child was cloud watching,

and every so often if I have free time I will go to a park and just sit down and take in the beauty

of nature. There’s a certain level of happiness that I get when I am out in nature, and that has

shaped my hobbies. I enjoy playing sports, going bike riding, and hiking as much as I can. In
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these ways, Emerson’s ideas about nature remind me of my own views of nature and make me

want to take some time to go out this weekend.