Nature

Scaffolded/Short-Answer Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the below-bulleted outlines. Over the course of your response, cite details from the essay that serve as examples and support for your ideas.

1. If we see Emerson’s “Nature” as a response to one basic question, that question might be “What is the point of nature?”

• According to Emerson, what is the main point of nature? (topic sentence)
• Of the six uses of nature Emerson explores, which two or three seem the most significant in terms of explaining the primary purpose or use of nature? Use details from the text to support your answer.
• Finally, discuss in your concluding sentence or sentences how the theme of individualism, or self-reliance, that threads through the essay relates to nature and the main point of it, in Emerson’s estimation.

2. At certain moments in “Nature,” Emerson’s arguments take on overtones of European colonialist ideology or thinking. For example, to illustrate what he considers the beauty of “heroic actions” in Chapter 3 (“Beauty”), Emerson opines, “When the bark of Columbus nears the shore of America;--before it, the beach lined with savages, fleeing out of all their huts of cane; the sea behind, and the purple mountains of the Indian Archipelago around, can we separate the man from the living picture?”