“After hoeing, or perhaps reading and writing, in the forenoon, I usually bathed again in the pond, swimming across one of its coves for a stint, and washed the dust of labor from my person, or smoothed out the last wrinkle which study had made, and for the afternoon was absolutely free. Every day or two I strolled to the village to hear some of the gossip which is incessantly going on there. . . As I walked in the woods to see the birds and squirrels, so I walked in the village to see the men and boys. . . The village appeared to me a great news room. . . I observed that the vitals of the village were the grocery, the bar?room, the post?office, and the bank; and as a necessary part of the machinery, they kept a bell, a big gun, and a fire engine, at convenient places…. “

B Walden, Thoreau

A. Preparation to write B Spend some time observing the “village of Keiser University.” Make notes regarding what is important around here. Thoreau mentions places like the post?office and the bank. What are the comparable “vitals” of this place? What criteria are you using to assess relative importance? What do your assessments say about what this community values? About whom it values?

B. Journal B Consider how viewing a place through that which is “vital” to it shapes our perceptions of that place. After doing your preparatory work for this journal, do you see Keiser in any ways different from before?

What are the “vitals” of the village of Keiser University? How would they compare to the vitals in a real village like Thoreau’s?

What do these “vital” places say about what or whom this community values?

Do you see Keiser in any way different than before?

Responses should be 3-4 paragraphs. Respond to 2 classmates to create a dialogue.