Pre-Reading

Text

Activities

Intro to Civil Disobedience

PowerPoint Presentation

Link to full text of "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" courtesy of the Walden Woods Project

Abridged text of Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham City Jail" from A Patriot's Handbook edited by Caroline Kennedy

Lesson from the Asia Society on the links between Thoreau, Ganhi, and MLK Jr. and their commitments to civil disobedience

Pre-Reading

Text

"Looking East" presentation on the influcences of Hindu and Buddhist thought in Walden

Link to full text of Walden courtesy of the Walden Woods Project

Abridged text of Walden from A Patriot's Handbook edited by Caroline Kennedy

Lessons and Activities

Additional Resources

• Ask students to use Glogster.com to create a poster reflecting their vision of Thoreau's message in Walden

• Read the Billy Collins poem "Dharma" and ask students to analyze the poem's connections to Walden, Hinduism, and Buddhism

• Read the Jataka tales of "The Golden Deer" and "The Tree Spirit" and ask students to connect these texts to the messages in Walden and "Civil Disobedience"

• Buddhism and Hinduism teaching resources from PBS.org

• National Geographic lesson on the spread of Buddhism

• Indian epic lesson courtesy of EDCITEment

• Himalayan religious art at the Rubin Musem