“For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea…
James Baldwin, “Down at the Cross: Letter from a Region in my Mind”
“Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have.” James Baldwin, “Down at…
Zoe Moss, “It Hurts To Be Alive and Obsolete”
“Listen to me! Think what it is like to have most of your life ahead and be told you are obsolete! Think what it is like to feel attraction, desire, affection towards others, to want to tell them about yourself, to feel that assumption on which self-respect is based, that you are worth something, and…
Walt Whitman, “Leaves of Grass”
“I celebrate myself, and sing myself.” Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass Have you used this sample in your class? If so, please let us know how. What did you discuss? What activities did you do? How did students respond? Comment below!
Arundhati Roy, “The God of Small Things”
“As Estha stirred the thick jam he thought Two Thoughts and the Two Thoughts he thought were these: a) Anything can happen to anyone. and b) It is best to be prepared.” Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things Have you used this sample in your class? If so, please…
Willa Cather, “My Antonia”
“At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.” Willa Cather, My Antonia Have you used this sample in your class? If so, please let us know how. What did you discuss? What activities did you do? How did students respond? Comment below!
Barack Obama, “The Audacity of Hope” (2)
“I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.” Barack Obama, “The Audacity of Hope,” 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address …
Barack Obama, “The Audacity of Hope”
“It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs. The hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores. The hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta. The hope of a mill worker’s son who dares to defy the odds. The hope of a skinny kid with a funny…
John Green, “Looking for Alaska”
“So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.” John Green, Looking for Alaska Have you used this sample in your class? If so, please let us know how. What did you…
Peter Marin, “Helping and Hating the Homeless”
“Daily the city eddies around the homeless. The crowds flowing past leave a few feet, a gap. We do not touch the homeless world. Perhaps we cannot touch it. It remains separate even as the city surrounds it.” Peter Marin, “Helping and Hating the Homeless” Have you used this…
Italo Calvino, “Invisible Cities”
“There is a sense of emptiness that comes over us at evening, with the odor of the elephants after the rain and the sandalwood ashes growing cold in the braziers, a dizziness that makes rivers and mountains tremble on the fallow curves of the planispheres where they are portrayed, and rolls up, one after the…
Betty Smith, “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”
“‘Dear God,’ she prayed, ‘let me be something every minute of every hour of my life.’” Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Have you used this sample in your class? If so, please let us know how. What did you discuss? What activities did you do? How did students respond?…
Rutgers University-Camden 