Though at first you may think of Walden as a disorganized, loose collection of notes and random thoughts and guesses, try to find structure. (Even if you decide to follow contemporary approaches to literature, remember that in order to prove a text's undercutting of itself, for example, you will first have to establish a structure in the text and not just simply deny it from the get-go.)

We'll probably have this passage in the course reader, but I'll post it so that you can read Walden along these lines if you have real troubles sorting out your thougts. Matthiessen (168ff) delineates an intricate structure to the text, and I would support his thesis with minor changes.

Remember that the book is not the notebook he claims (always be aware, if an author makes a claim about his text within that text, it is not primarily a neutral comment, but much more often part of the novel!), but the deliberate manipulation of material collected over more than 15 years!

Walden functions on two structural levels in its organization:
1. Chronologically, Thoreau displays the connection between the day as a symbol for the year, the year as a symbol for a life, and nature as the enclosing totality. So we find a circularity and yet an inter-relation as well as a progression. You may want to think about why he started in summer instead of winter, spring, or autumn.
2. Topically, he progresses from one chapter to the next:
-Economy: What is this all about? "lives of quiet desperation"
-Where....: What is the deeper meaning of this? "wedge down to reality, observe reality)
-Reading: (the observer reads and observes language)
-Sounds: (the universal language, the absence of sounds)
-Solitude: (in the quiet exists the joy of unimpared senses)
-Visitors: (contrasting, disturbances, the praise of the real man)
-Bean Field: (seasons and nature call, the main occupation)
-Village: (contrast, breaks from work, gossip, strolling)
-The Ponds: (strolling further)
-Baker Farm: (rambling even further, on the return the startling desire to eat an animal and the epiphany of the spiritual and wild sides of his being)
-Higher Laws: (he explores the spiritual side until his imagination is satisfied)
-Brute Neighbors: (he explores the wild side until his imagination is satisfied)
-Here the text changes into a second part, as the cyclical structure of nature takes over the organization, based on the simple fact that it is necessary.
House-Warming: (summer is gone, a chimney is built)
-Winter Visitors/
-Winter Animals/
-The Pond in Winter: (a long and cold winter leaves its impression in the long treatment, as winter progresses, his circle of consideration contracts in each chapter, he closes into himself like nature. The cutting of the ice finally explodes his imagination again into stunning passages that fully leave behind time and space.)
-Spring: (the breaking of the ice brings the renewal of the world, a promise and cheerfulness).