Thoreau's Imagery

I recently mentioned how elegantly Thoreau writes. While I certainly do not agree with everything that he writes, I do agree with the way he writes. I had an opportunity to share a few of my findings with one of my seventh grade classes this week. We were doing our core tests in Language Arts earlier this week. The classes usually complete the day's section of the test before the class time is over, and since they are in a computer lab to take the test, they are only allowed a reading book at that the computer. I told the students to enjoy their books, or I would start reading mine to them. They asked me what book I had with me, and I showed them Thoreau's Walden. They said they wanted me to share (they really are great kids). So I shared one of his very long sentences that was most of one paragraph and then asked them what kind of punctuation would need to be in that sentence. They were sharp and got that right, so I decided to read some of his imagery using figures of speech to see if they could even remember the figures of speech. Here is a sampling of what I read. "A lake...is earth's eye." (149) "it is worth the while to see the silver grain sparkle when you split this wood" (161)
"peet-weets (Totanus machularius) 'teeter'" (148) "These are the lips of the lake, on which no beard grows." (145) "red squirrels...kept up the queerest chuckling and chirruping and vocal pirouetting and gurgling sounds that ever were heard;" (245) The kids had fun, got the answers right, and enjoyed their brief visit with Thoreau. It was a good day.