OR

stay logged in   forgot password?

Please wait... Blue_on_grey_spinner

Collection: Students Turning Texts, Images, and Video into Conversations Return to Group

  • almost 4 years ago

    346 Comments

    The Tragedy of Macbeth, Act 1 Information-grey

    Synopsis

    Macbeth, set primarily in Scotland, mixes witchcraft, prophecy, and murder. Three “Weïrd Sisters” appear to Macbeth and his comrade Banquo after a battle and prophesy that Macbeth will be king and that the descendants of Banquo will also reign. When Macbeth arrives at his castle, he and Lady Macbeth plot to assassinate King Duncan, soon to be their guest, so that Macbeth can become king.
    After Macbeth murders Duncan, the king’s two sons flee, and Macbeth is crowned. Fearing that Banquo’s descendants will, according to the Weïrd Sisters’ predictions, take over the kingdom, Macbeth has Banquo killed. At a royal banquet that evening, Macbeth sees Banquo’s ghost appear covered in blood. Macbeth determines to consult the Weïrd Sisters again. They comfort him with ambiguous promises.
    Another nobleman, Macduff, rides to England to join Duncan’s older son, Malcolm. Macbeth...

    Read more and comment

  • almost 4 years ago

    236 Comments

    If Beale Street Could Talk, by James Baldwin (part 1) Information-grey

    Unnamed

    for YORAN

    Mary, Mary,
    What you going to name
    That pretty little baby?

    ONE: Troubled About My Soul

    I look at myself in the mirror. I know that I was christened Clementine, and so it would make sense if people called me Clem, or even, come to think of it, Clementine, since that’s my name: but they don’t. People call me Tish. I guess that makes sense, too. I’m tired, and I’m beginning to think that maybe everything that happens makes sense. Like, if it didn’t make sense, how could it happen? But that’s really a terrible thought. It can only come out of trouble – trouble that doesn’t make sense.

    Today,...

    Read more and comment

  • almost 4 years ago

    343 Comments

    "The Glass Menagerie," Scene One and Scene Two, by Tennessee Williams (1944) Information-grey

    Pas-l-menagerie-0310-featured-1

    Scene 1

     

    The Wingfield apartment is in the rear of the building, one of those vast hive-like conglomerations of cellular living-units that flower as warty growths in overcrowded urban centers of lower-middle-class population and are symptomatic of the impulse of this largest and fundamentally enslaved section of American society to avoid fluidity and differentiation and to exist and function as one interfused mass of automatism.

     

    The apartment faces an alley and is entered by a fire-escape, a structure whose name is a touch of accidental poetic truth, for all of these huge buildings are always burning with the slow and implacable fires of human desperation. The fire-escape is included in the set - that is, the landing of it and steps descending from it.

     

    The...

    Read more and comment

  • almost 4 years ago

    27 Comments

  • over 4 years ago

    11 Comments

    "Changes," by Tupac Shakur (Haziraj copy) Information-grey

    [2Pac:]
    I see no changes, wake up in the morning and I ask myself:
    "Is life worth living? Should I blast myself?"
    I'm tired of being poor and, even worse, I'm black
    My stomach hurts so I'm looking for a purse to snatch
    Cops give a damn about a negro
    Pull the trigger, kill a nigga, he's a hero
    "Give the crack to the kids: who the hell cares?
    One less hungry mouth on the welfare!"
    First ship 'em dope and let 'em deal to brothers
    Give 'em guns, step back, watch 'em kill each other
    "It's time to fight back," that's what Huey said
    Two shots in the dark, now Huey's dead
    I got love for my brother
    But we can never go nowhere unless we share with each other
    ...

    Read more and comment

  • over 4 years ago

    10 Comments

    "Changes," by Tupac Shakur (Denson copy) Information-grey

    [2Pac:]
    I see no changes, wake up in the morning and I ask myself:
    "Is life worth living? Should I blast myself?"
    I'm tired of being poor and, even worse, I'm black
    My stomach hurts so I'm looking for a purse to snatch
    Cops give a damn about a negro
    Pull the trigger, kill a nigga, he's a hero
    "Give the crack to the kids: who the hell cares?
    One less hungry mouth on the welfare!"
    First ship 'em dope and let 'em deal to brothers
    Give 'em guns, step back, watch 'em kill each other
    "It's time to fight back," that's what Huey said
    Two shots in the dark, now Huey's dead
    I got love for my brother
    But we can never go nowhere unless we share with each other
    ...

    Read more and comment

  • over 4 years ago

    266 Comments

    The Omnivore’s Dilemma: Young Readers Edition - Preface and Introduction Information-grey

    Preface

    This book just might change your life.

    I...

    Read more and comment

  • over 4 years ago

    195 Comments

    Living Up The Street: Narrative Recollections - Part 1 (pp. 1-32) Information-grey

    Being Mean

    We were terrible kids, I think. My brother, sister, and I felt a general meanness begin to surface from our tiny souls while living on Braly Street, which was in the middle of industrial Fresno. Across the street was Coleman Pickles, while on the right of us was a junkyard that dealt in metals— aluminum, iron, sheet metal, and copper stripped from refrigerators. Down the street was Sun-Maid Raisin, where a concrete tower rose above the scraggly sycamores that lined Braly Street. Many of our family worked at Sun-Maid: Grandfather and Grandmother, Father, three uncles, an aunt, and even a dog whose job was to accompany my grandfather, a security guard, on patrol. Then there was Challenge Milk, a printing shop, and the 7-Up Company where we stole sodas. Down the alley was a broom factory and Western Book Distributor, a place where our future step-father worked at packing books into cardboard boxes, something he would do for fifteen years before the company left town for Oregon.

    This was 1957. My brother Rick was six, I was five, and Debra was four. Although...

    Read more and comment

  • over 4 years ago

    182 Comments

    To Kill a Mockingbird, pages 3 - 28 of the screenplay by Horton Foote Information-grey

    Cast of Characters

    Atticus Finch

    Scout Finch

    Jem Finch

    Dill Harris

    Sherif Heck Tate

    Miss Maudie...

    Read more and comment

  • over 4 years ago

    30 Comments

    RIKERS Information-grey

    RIKERS – From Bill Moyers and a team of producers that includes Marc Levin, Mark Banjamin and Rolake Bambose, comes the first film to focus exclusively on former detainees of RIkers Island. Their searing testimonials about the deep-seated culture of systemic violence and corruption that has plagued the notorious NYC jail for decades add a powerful authentic voice to investigative journalism that has reported on violence and abuse at the jail. ...

    Read more and comment

  • over 4 years ago

    64 Comments

    "Imitation of Life/HARLEM Hopscotch," video by Dianne Smith and "Harlem Hopscotch," poem by Maya Angelou Information-grey

    Imitation of Life/HARLEM Hopsctch from Dianne Smith on Vimeo.

    Harlem Hopscotch is part of my Imitation of Life Series which I like to call digital storytelling. The work consists of a compilation of videos and images.

    These images and videos are mostly what I have documented as I move through my beloved Harlem community. They are a string of day to day occurrences. They are simply a sum of my lived experiences, that together become very performative.

    The videos and images are layered, in a sort of stop motion like way. The aesthetics of the work speaks to a place that is textured, unique, spirited, animated and diverse. With this series I show the dichotomy of the community how the old or nostalgic view of Harlem is ever present, while...

    Read more and comment

  • over 4 years ago

    89 Comments

    Invisible Child, Part 1: Girl in the Shadows: Dasani’s Homeless Life Information-grey

    She wakes to the sound of breathing. The smaller children lie tangled beside her, their chests rising and falling under winter coats and wool blankets. A few feet away, their mother and father sleep near the mop bucket they use as a toilet. Two other children share a mattress by the rotting wall where the mice live, opposite the baby, whose crib is warmed by a hair dryer perched on a milk crate.

    Slipping out from her covers, the oldest girl sits at the window. On mornings like this, she can see all the way across Brooklyn to the Empire State Building, the first New York skyscraper to reach 100 floors. Her gaze always stops at that iconic temple of stone, its tip pointed celestially, its facade lit with promise.

    ...

    Read more and comment

  • over 4 years ago

    203 Comments

    The Tyger, by William Blake Information-grey

    Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
    In the forests of the night;
    What immortal hand or eye,
    Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

    In what distant deeps or skies.
    Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
    On what wings dare he aspire?
    What the hand, dare seize the fire?

    And what shoulder, & what art,
    Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
    And when thy heart began to beat,
    What dread hand? & what dread feet?

    ...

    Read more and comment

  • over 4 years ago

    138 Comments

    Trujillo Gallery Walk Information-grey

    /system/documents/0006/5125/Gallery_Walk/613495470.jpg

    President Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic makes a speech warning...

    Read more and comment

  • over 4 years ago

    235 Comments

    Is sex necessary? Virgin birth and opportunism in the garden by David Quammen Information-grey

    BIRDS DO IT, BEES DO IT, or so goes the tune. But the songsters, as usual, would mislead us with drastic oversimplifications. The full biological truth happens to be more eccentrically nonlibidinous. Sometimes they don’t do it, those very creatures, and get the reproductive results anyway. Bees of all species, for instance, are notable for their ability to produce offspring while doing without. Birds mostly do mate, yes, but at least one variety—the Beltsville...

    Read more and comment

  • over 4 years ago

    222 Comments

  • over 4 years ago

    258 Comments

  • over 4 years ago

    171 Comments

    American Creed: The Stories (YouTube) Information-grey

    WHAT HOLDS US TOGETHER IN TURBULENT TIMES?

    Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David M. Kennedy come together from remarkably different backgrounds, life experiences and points of view to explore the idea of a unifying American creed. Their spirited inquiry frames the stories of a range of citizen-activists striving to realize their own visions of America’s promise across deep divides.

    American Creed launches as a nationally televised PBS Special, and as a feature documentary on PBS.org, on Feb. 27, 2018. The date marks the beginning of a robust public engagement campaign including community conversations, classroom activities and local storytelling in cities and towns across the country — all designed to foster a bold national conversation about American ideals and identity.

     


    Read more and comment

  • over 4 years ago

    335 Comments

    Tuck Everlasting, Prologue and Chapters 1-8 Information-grey

    Prologue

    The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is lightning, but it quivers all alone. There is no thunder, no relieving rain. These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after.

    One day at that time, not so very long ago, three things happened and at first there appeared to be no connection between them.

    ...

    Read more and comment

© Copyright 2021, Paul Allison.
"NowComment" is a registered trademark of Paul Allison. All rights reserved.

Back to Top

Quickstart: Commenting and Sharing

How to Comment
  • Click icons on the left to see existing comments.
  • Desktop/Laptop: double-click any text, highlight a section of an image, or add a comment while a video is playing to start a new conversation.
    Tablet/Phone: single click then click on the "Start One" link (look right or below).
  • Click "Reply" on a comment to join the conversation.
How to Share Documents
  1. "Upload" a new document.
  2. "Invite" others to it.

Logging in, please wait... Blue_on_grey_spinner