1. Re-searching for Meaning Research Project on Transcendentalism

2. Overview  To deepen your understanding of Transcendentalism, you will work in groups of 3 or 4 to create a poster depicting Transcendentalism's key beliefs. These groups will be self-selected, so you will receive a group grade. Choose your groups wisely as this will be of significant weight in the grade book. Your research and presentation should be based on your initial work with Emerson and also with Thoreau.

3. Questions for Research- Choose at least one per group member  What is their view of God?  What are their values?  How do they define truth?  Do they have an optimistic or pessimistic view of life?  What are their views of work and worldly success?  What is their view of society?  Who is their authority?  What is their view of education?  Do they view man as inherently good, evil, or somewhere in between?  Who influenced the transcendentalist philosophy?  Find some examples of transcendentalism today (besides McCandless).

4. Resources for Research  Each group will receive a packet with samples of writing from Thoreau and Emerson to study, a graphic organizer for keeping track of sources, and a rubric. You must not lose this packet!  Books from Transcendentalist authors available for classroom use only.  You may use your phones for research  Note- you must use high quality sources..edu and.gov sites tend to be highly reliable. Try http://transcendentalism- legacy.tamu.edu.http://transcendentalism- legacy.tamu.edu  Wikipedia and especially Google will not be acceptable.

5. Poster  Your poster will need to:  1) answer at least one question per group member  2) include artwork that represents transcendentalism  3) include at least one quote that addresses each question  4) be neat, orderly, and creative  5) have a correctly formatted bibliography on the back

6. Timeline  You have today and tomorrow to do your research and prepare your poster.  This is not a great amount of time in class, so consider using your time wisely and working outside of class.  You will be presenting your poster on Wednesday.

7. Presentation  Each group should prepare a 3 minute presentation of their poster and how it demonstrates the tenets of transcendentalism.  Each group will receive questions from the audience that they will need to answer, so be prepared.  Audience members will be graded on their listening skills by willingness to ask specific, genuine, on-topic questions.