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http://theliterarylink.com/flowers.html

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"The Flowers" by Alice Walker

Reading and Writing about Short Fiction. Ed. Edward Proffitt. NY: Harcourt,
1988. 404-05.

It seemed to Myop as she skipped lightly from hen house to pigpen to smokehouse that the days had never been as beautiful as these. The air held a keenness that made her nose twitch. The harvesting of the corn and cotton, peanuts and squash, made each day a golden surprise that caused excited little tremors to run up her jaws.

Myop carried a short, knobby stick. She struck out at random at chickens she liked, and worked out the beat of a song on the fence around the pigpen. She felt light and good in the warm sun. She was ten, and nothing existed for her but her song, the stick clutched in her dark brown hand, and the tat-de-ta-ta-ta of accompaniment,

Turning her back on the rusty boards of her family's sharecropper cabin, Myop walked along the fence till it ran into the stream made by the spring. Around the spring, where the family got drinking water, silver ferns and wildflowers grew. Along the shallow banks pigs rooted. Myop watched the tiny white bubbles disrupt the thin black scale of soil and the water that silently rose and slid away down the stream.

She had explored the woods behind the house many times. Often, in late autumn, her mother took her to gather nuts among the fallen leaves. Today she made her own path, bouncing this way and that way, vaguely keeping an eye out for snakes. She found, in addition to various common but pretty ferns and leaves, an armful of strange blue flowers with velvety ridges and a sweet suds bush full of the brown, fragrant buds.

By twelve o'clock, her arms laden with sprigs of her findings, she was a mile or more from home. She had often been as far before, but the strangeness of the land made it not as pleasant as her usual haunts. It seemed gloomy in the little cove in which she found herself. The air was damp, the silence close and deep.

Myop began to circle back to the house, back to the peacefulness of the morning. It was then she stepped smack into his eyes. Her heel became lodged in the broken ridge between brow and nose, and she reached down quickly, unafraid, to free herself. It was only when she saw his naked grin that she gave a little yelp of surprise.

He had been a tall man. From feet to neck covered a long space. His head lay beside him. When she pushed back the leaves and layers of earth and debris Myop saw that he'd had large white teeth, all of them cracked or broken, long fingers, and very big bones. All his clothes had rotted away except some threads of blue denim from his overalls. The buckles of the overall had turned green.

Myop gazed around the spot with interest. Very near where she'd stepped into the head was a wild pink rose. As she picked it to add to her bundle she noticed a raised mound, a ring, around the rose's root. It was the rotted remains of a noose, a bit of shredding plowline, now blending benignly into the soil. Around an overhanging limb of a great spreading oak clung another piece. Frayed, rotted, bleached, and frazzled-barely there-but spinning restlessly in the breeze. Myop laid down her flowers.

And the summer was over.

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"The Flowers" by Alice Walker Reading and Writing about Short Fiction. Ed. Edward Proffitt. NY: Harcourt, 1988. 404-05. It seemed to Myop as she skipped lightly from hen house to pigpen to smokehouse that the days had never been as beautiful as these. The air held a keenness that made her nose twitch.

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http://thisibelieve.org/essay/38707/

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http://thisibelieve.org/audio/TIB_Prejean.mp3

I watch what I do to see what I really believe.

Belief and faith are not just words. It's one thing for me to say I'm a Christian, but I have to embody what it means; I have to live it. So, writing this essay and knowing I'll share it in a public way becomes an occasion for me to look deeply at what I really believe by how I act.

"Love your neighbor as yourself," Jesus said, and as a beginner nun I tried earnestly to love my neighbor - the children I taught, their parents, my fellow teachers, my fellow nuns. But for a long time the circle of my loving care was small and, for the most part, included only white, middle-class people like me. But one day I woke up to Jesus's deeper challenge to love the outcast, the criminal, the underdog. So I packed my stuff and moved into a noisy, violent housing project in an African-American neighborhood in New Orleans.

I saw the suffering and I let myself feel it: the sound of gunshots in the night, mothers calling out for their children. I saw the injustice and was compelled to do something about it. I changed from being a nun who only prayed for the suffering world to a nun with my sleeves rolled up, living my prayer. Working in that community in New Orleans soon led me to Louisiana's death row.

So I keep watching what I do to see what I actually believe.

Jesus's biggest challenge to us is to love our enemies. On death row I encountered the enemy, those considered so irredeemable by our society that even our Supreme Court has made it legal to kill them. For 20 years now I've been visiting people on death row, and I have accompanied six human beings to their deaths. As each has been killed I have told them to look at me. I want them to see a loving face when they die. I want my face to carry the love that tells them that they and every one of us are worth more than our most terrible acts.

But I knew being with the perpetrators wasn't enough. I also had to reach out to victims' families. I visited the families who wanted to see me, and I founded a victims' support group in New Orleans. It was a big stretch for me, loving both perpetrators and victims' families, and most of the time I fail because so often a victim's families interpret my care for perpetrators as choosing sides - the wrong side. I understand that, but I don't stop reaching out.

I've learned from victims' families just how alone many of them feel. The murder of their loved one is so horrible, their pain so great, that most people stay away. But they need people to visit, to listen, to care. It doesn't take anybody special, just someone who cares.

Writing this essay reminds me, as an ordinary person, that it's important to take stock, to see where I am. The only way I know what I really believe is by keeping watch over what I do.

Sister Helen Prejean's work as spiritual advisor to death row inmates formed the basis of two books, including "Dead Man Walking." A native of Louisiana, Prejean became a nun in 1957, and in 1981 she dedicated her life to the poor of New Orleans.

Independently produced for NPR by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman with John Gregory and Viki Merrick. Photo by Grant-Guerrero Photography.

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"Dead Man Walking" author Sister Helen Prejean says being a good Christian means taking action. So to learn what Prejean believes, she says to watch what she does. For her, that means her work with death row prisoners and with victims' families.

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http://www.thisibelieve.org/dsp_ShowEssay.php?uid=15913

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My whole life I have viewed myself as a spectator. Telling myself I'm not someone who can make a difference. I wished I could be. I thought that maybe, someday, possibly, hopefully, I could inspire a change... But I need to finish my homework first. Or I need to wait until I have the time.

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"Venezuelans flee to the US in search of better lives" on CNN

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"Venezuelans flee to the US in search of better lives" on CNN

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http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/11/us/venezuela-asylum-seekers-us/index.html?scrlybrkr=caab009f#

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Holding back tears, she remembers a night spent on the floor. She huddled with her three kids, praying, as Venezuelan government forces fiercely clashed with protesters outside her apartment walls. In the streets anti-government protesters demanded Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro step down. Their protests were met with tear gas, water cannons, and rubber bullets. During that night of April 11, three Venezuelans would die in the Barquisimeto area.

"The hardest moments happened on the last days," Carolina said. Carolina is not her real name. She has asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation against her family in Venezuela.

Sitting in a metro Atlanta shopping area, she talks of an entire life left behind. The boutique she owned with her husband. The social events she organized. She remembers her family -- her uncle who's currently recovering from a stroke and her grandmother, in her 80's, who has no one to care for her.

"One day I called her and she told me all she had to eat was rice and butter."

Venezuela has been plagued by food shortages and soaring prices. Inflation levels are in the triple digits. In 2016, the average Venezuelan living in extreme poverty lost about 19 pounds due to the lack of food. Many of its citizens had to skip meals, according to a national poll.

People have demanded president Maduro step down and hold elections. Protests have stretched into a third month, resulting in nearly 70 deaths.

Carolina, her husband and their three kids will soon be joining the growing number of Venezuelans seeking asylum in the United states. Venezuelans are now the top asylum seekers in the US, ahead of citizens from China, Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador. It's the first time Venezuelans have topped the list.

Carolina sold her business and her car in Venezuela and used the money to buy plane tickets for her family. The leftover money was rationed out to buy a small car and for a deposit on an apartment.

"We know we are starting from zero" she said, "it is a very difficult time and I have a lot of sadness in my heart for the things I left behind in Venezuela, but for my children, it is all worth it."

Carolina and her family have been in the United States for less than a month. Once they file their asylum applications, Carolina and her husband will then need to wait 150 days before they can request a work permit.

In the meantime, she said she stays up at night talking to her husband about money, and how little of it they have left.

However, Carolina knows her family is lucky to have had the tourist visas that allowed them to come into the US.

His work made him a target

Metro Atlanta area is home to many Venezuelans in the same situation as Carolina.

Arturo and Maria Gonzalez, also not their real names, fled Venezuela after being threatened. Arturo said his work as a television news photographer made him a walking target. They have asked us to conceal their identities to protect themselves and their families.

The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that "more than 100 journalists and media workers have been threatened, harassed, detained, injured, or otherwise obstructed from doing their work in Venezuela since mass protests erupted."

The Venezuelan government has also taken international TV channels, including CNN en Español, off the air for airing news reports that were unfavorable to the government.

The Gonzalez' came to America eight months ago with one suitcase each, $1,200, and a dream of living a safe and secure life.

"It was a big sacrifice to leave everything." Arturo said, "the sacrifice weighs heavily every day." He adds in the end the security and comfort of living in the US makes the sacrifice worth it.

Arturo speaks of the strong contrast between life in the two countries.

"Here you have at your disposal anything you want to buy. When in reality in Venezuela we would spend hours in line for one product."

Maria recounts that many times after spending hours in line, there would be no products left.

Security threats and food shortages weren't the only things that brought the Gonzalez to the United States.

Maria also had thyroid cancer and after surgery to get it removed, she needed daily medication. She said the acute medical shortages in Venezuela made it so she couldn't get the medicine she needed.

"If I don't have my daily medicine, in one week I would die."

Medical shortages forced them to flee

Maria Gonzalez is not alone.

Walking out of a dialysis center on a sunny Thursday afternoon, you would never guess that Richard Vargas, 47, was on the verge of dying when he arrived in Atlanta just a month ago. Vargas has end stage renal disease and needs dialysis three times a week.

"In Venezuela there was a lot of difficulty for my dialysis treatment. There were no supplies, there was no medicine."

Richard, proudly wearing a Venezuela hat, knows that he wouldn't have survived much longer had he stayed.

"One week, fifteen days," he estimates, "it was very unlikely that I would have survived without my treatment."

He was so sick that he was immediately admitted to an Atlanta area hospital for 8 days, before he was well enough to be discharged.

His wife, Jovaera Valero, 46, said the life-saving drugs her husband needed were also hard to come by. The couple did not want to leave, but knew it was impossible to stay.

"It is sad to see your spouse getting worse, slipping through your fingers, and you can't do anything" Valero said.

The couple sold their trucking business to get the money necessary to come to the US and to pay for his costly medical treatment.

Richard said his thoughts remain with his native Venezuela.

"In reality my heart is in Venezuela" he said. "I carry it in my heart."

Future in America

Once families have arrived in the US, all they can do now is wait. They wait for the government to hear their asylum cases and make a decision if they can stay -- or if they need to leave.

Many have sold everything they had back home and came to America in search of a safe heaven.

For now, they are here, rebuilding their lives from ground up. They hope to one day be able to go back to their families and friends-- and to the lives they have left behind.

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venezuelans top table of us asylum seekers - cnn.com

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Marilia Brocchetto, Polo Sandoval and Jaide Timm-Garcia, CNN

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Venezuelans flee to the US in search of better lives

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The decision to come to the United States wasn't an easy one. Carolina, a 33-year-old mother of three, said it was perhaps one of the toughest decisions of her life -- one taken after many sleepless nights in her Barquisimeto, Venezuela, apartment.

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https://newsela.com/text-sets/22466/refugee-crisis

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

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This I Believe: "A Drive to Achieve the Extraordinary"

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This I Believe: "A Drive to Achieve the Extraordinary"

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http://thisibelieve.org/essay/34055/

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http://thisibelieve.org/audio/TIB_Frerking.mp3

I believe in the challenge to accomplish something out of the ordinary. I have to confess I acquired this belief from the book Guinness World Records. That book showed me the value of equal opportunity and competition. It proved to me, early on, that I could rise above anonymity and achieve remarkable things.

When I was nine, I used to huddle in the back of the library with my friend Leanne, and we'd turn the 1991 edition of the Guinness World Records book pages with purple hands sticky from raspberry Laffy Taffy. Reassured by Mrs. Balanoff, our third grade teacher, that we could be anything when we grew up, we felt challenged by 320 pages of incredible feats. And so with the obsessive focus of nine-year-olds, we assumed the daily task of finding our place in the universe.

The Guinness World Records taught me to believe in the accessibility of the improbable. I was captured by the little bit of fame conferred by inclusion in that book: the fastest, the longest, the widest, the most-whatever you can imagine. It opened up the possibilities of what I might be able to do.

I was attracted to the lure of the unusual. How long would it take to grow my fingernails to beat a record for a total of fourteen feet, six inches? I bet our teachers never thought the equation d = rt would be used to figure that one out, or that we would be tempted to research everything about Namibia because it was home to the world's fastest caterpillar. Leanne settled on holding her breath for the longest time, and I decided to make the world's largest cookie. Thus, Leanne joined the swim team, and I gained ten pounds.

The Guinness World Records taught me tenacity and perseverance and, more important, the desire to do something unexpected. So many people in the book were mocked by family and friends for what they were doing, yet they did it. I see them as success stories-normal people who did something extraordinary.

In college, before September 11, I decided to study Arabic. I am not Muslim or of Arab decent; I am a Southern Baptist girl from Texas. Enticed by the sounds of elongated alifs and lams, I fell in love with the complexity of the language and the beauty of its slanting script. After graduation, to put my skills to use, I moved to Cairo and then to Tunisia, where I just finished working with divorced women.

I am not saving the world, I am not the best at what I do, but I am only twenty-four-there's still time. The Guinness World Records helped give me a new perspective on the impossible and instilled in me the desire to try something unconventional. I believe in making the implausible a reality, and I hope to someday break a few records myself.

Juliet Frerking graduated from Stanford University in 2005 with honors in International Relations and a minor in Arabic language. She conducted research in Tunisia under a Fulbright Fellowship. Frerking currently lives and works in New York City.

Independently produced for NPR by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman with John Gregory and Viki Merrick.

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http://thisibelieve.org/audio/TIB_Frerking.mp3 I believe in the challenge to accomplish something out of the ordinary. I have to confess I acquired this belief from the book Guinness World Records. That book showed me the value of equal opportunity and competition. It proved to me, early on, that I could rise above anonymity and achieve remarkable things.

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http://www.hasd.org/faculty/KristineCompton/This%20I%20Believe%20Sample%20Essays.pdf

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"This I Believe" Middle School Curriculum

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"This I Believe" Middle School Curriculum

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https://technoliteracy.wikispaces.com/file/view/ThisIBelieveMiddleSchoolCurriculum.pdf/238555585/ThisIBelieveMiddleSchoolCurriculum.pdf

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http://thisibelieve.org/essay/16931/

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"Last Day of Kindergarten" by Marjorie Saiser

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"Last Day of Kindergarten" by Marjorie Saiser

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PXJx3H8exxvioCMmpfdUguxSYWoK2OhM-sEBiM4FA3c/edit

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZrsalbbUmnqZe25K58FYm7V49GxxXDXfKGWweM7kjw8/edit

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Eleven by Sandra Cisneros  What they don’t understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you’re eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to f...

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http://www.cforks.org/Downloads/7.pdf