My name is Cameryn Criscione and as a future teacher, I hold many thoughts on how to bring a sense of the importance of American literature to the elementary school level. One interest I am currently exploring is teaching a lesson based off Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” to a fifth-grade class. This is relevant to the type of American literature I am interested in because it focuses on the Romantic Period, Realism, and Transcendentalism. 

Emerson’s work explores the ideas of how experiences shape our lives, how growth can be scary and painful, but also how it is necessary, and why it is essential to choose truth. I really think fifth graders can relate to these themes. They are old enough to reflect on how meaningful experiences have guided their lives thus far. As fifth graders, they will be going into a new school the following year, which can be scary for some of them. They need to recognize that this new setting will help them grow in new ways that are needed. 

I believe that Emerson’s book can help kids develop skills to make themselves self-reliant by realizing it takes courage to be an individual and that the way we use our minds will guide our lives by controlling what we think and how we feel. Emerson illustrates that one should not be afraid to change his or her mind. Students should be aware that it is okay to have different opinions and that, overtime as they broaden their knowledge, their thoughts will change. The importance of living in the now and letting go of past selves is a vital lesson of “Self-Reliance”.

Transcendentalism can be particularly difficult for students to understand, but understanding the Transcendental belief of nonconformity can be extremely beneficial for students to grasp. My first approach to the lesson would be to explain to the class in a brief lecture that Romanticism as a philosophical and cultural movement gradually replaced the Enlightenment era. I would make sure that I convey the main characteristics of Romanticism that include focus on the individual, a celebration of nature, and the reliance on emotion and intuition. Following this, I would allow students to design a poem titled “I am Self-Reliant” to allow them to be creative and to explain how the characteristics that they identify as what makes them “self-reliant” makes them independent and successful.

To be truly self-reliant does not mean that you cannot get help from others, but rather your strength comes from within you. Students will hopefully develop more than just skills but a mindset to be self-sufficient. I want to teach my future students to be nonconformist and to trust themselves. I believe I can best do this through the literary work of “Self-Reliance”.

A resource I would like to have available to me as a teacher would be fun classroom activities to help different types of learners.