Resistance to Civil Government by Thoreau

Please click on the links below to retrieve the handouts:

"Resistance to Civil Government"

by Henry David Thoreau

Learning Goals

Students will understand:

• Thoreau’s philosophy of nonviolent civil disobedience
• Thoreau’s argument, his underlying assumptions
• Thoreau’s exigence, the “imperfection marked by urgency”
• The nature of Thoreau’s appeals: to authority, to audience, to text
• Close reading and annotating
• How to divide the essay into sections while noting the rhetorical purpose of each section
• Thoreau’s use of figurative language and his motives for using it in specific situations
• Connotations of words, particularly “govern”
• How to apply Thoreau’s concepts to King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”

Resistance to Civil Government by Henry David Thoreau (pdf file)
The condensed text of Thoreau's essay we will use in class

Thoreau Discussion Questions (pdf file)
Questions to help you understand the essay

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