The examples below from several NEXUS volumes illustrate our highly engaging and stimulating approach to active learning:

ROMEO & JULIET AND THE RENAISSANCE SAMPLES:

In ROMEO & JULIET AND THE RENAISSANCE, NEXUS makes Shakespeare accessible and enjoyable, while exercising critical reading and high-level thinking skills.

EXCERPTS FROM "WORD GAMES":

Part I

"Swits and spurs, swits and spurs;
or I ll cry a match." Romeo

"Word games were probably Shakespeare s favorite sport. One of the word sports he was a master of is pun Ping Pong. In pun Ping Pong words are volleyed back and forth like a ball between two opponents engaged in a battle of wits. With each volley, the word's meaning and sometimes its spelling changes. When all (or most) of its meaning twists have been exhausted, the characters continue the game by serving a new word.

ROMEO AND JULIET begins with a pun Ping Pong match between Sampson and Gregory, two Capulet servants. To follow this game, the audience (or reader) has to keep his or her eye not on the ball, but on the words that are flung back and forth. In scene one, the first word to be served is coals. In Gregory's return volley, "coals" is replaced with a like-sounding, related word: "colliers" (miners). "Colliers," in turn, is replaced with "choler" (anger) and then "collar" (yoke). Reread the passage, focusing on the word play.

In the next round, Sampson and Gregory volley the verb "move." Sometimes "moved" refers to physical movement and sometimes to emotional changes (he was moved to tears; she was moved to anger.)

Sampson: I strike quickly being moved.
Gregory: But thou art not quickly moved to strike.
Sampson: A dog of the house of Montague moves me.
Gregory: To move is to stir, and to be valiant is to stand.
Therefore, if thou art moved, thou run st away.
Sampson: A dog of that house shall move me to stand.

Who s winning the match?

In his first line "I strike quickly being moved" Sampson acts tough, saying he s ready to fight the moment anyone moves him to anger (offends him). Gregory changes the meaning of Sampson's words by rearranging them and throwing them back at him: "But thou art not quickly moved to strike." Gregory means Sampson takes a lot of abuse before defending himself. Offended, Sampson tries even harder to prove himself.

EXERPT from PART III, METAPHORS:

"Metaphors are a big part of our lives. The designers of computer software use them to describe complex computer functions in everyday, user friendly language. They compare the mysterious activities of microchips to things that we're more familiar and comfortable with. Calling the internet the information highway is an example. So is referring to computer glitches as viruses, and calling computer messages e-mail. Even the name of the software program "Windows" is a metaphor. The program doesn't have real windows that let in light and keep out flies and bad weather. But it utilizes screens that in some ways behave like windows. You can open and close the computer windows, and you can see through them into the complex worlds behind the monitor screen.

Sometimes Shakespeare uses metaphors for similar reasons to help us visualize what he s describing. When Romeo tells Juliet: "Jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops," we can picture the sun standing on its metaphorical toes upon the tops of the mountains, which are still covered with morning mist. If Romeo simply said, "Hey, honey, the sun s up." We wouldn't get the same vivid picture.

Here s a simple window metaphor.

Benvolio: An hour before the worshipped sun
Peered forth the golden window of the East.

The sun can't peer, only people and animals can do that. Here Shakespeare uses a special type of metaphor, personification, to describe the behavior of the sun. The east doesn't have golden windows, but Shakespeare uses these words metaphorically to help us picture the sun looking out its window in the morning and shining on the world. The window is golden because: 1) that's the color of the sun; and 2) the sun is associated with a god who, like a rich and powerful person, might own a golden window. Again, why not just say: "An hour before sunrise"? Because while those four words convey the bare fact, Shakespeare s eight words suggest all the other ideas we've listed above, and more.

Let s look at one more example from Act II, Scene 2. Juliet tells Romeo: "This bud of love, by summer s ripening breath, may prove a beauteous flow'r when next we meet."

Juliet means they should allow their new love to blossom before giving themselves fully to it, as you wait for a beautiful bud in a garden to bloom before picking it. Also, she implies that not all buds ripen; therefore, have a wait-and-see attitude; don't break your heart on false hopes, on buds that never blossom."

MACBETH & THE DARK AGES SAMPLES:

EXCERPTS FROM "WORD WARS":

"Fair is foul and foul is fair." The Witches

"Shakespeare often plays tug of war with words. We frequently find opposites or contrasts tugging at each other like two tough guys on opposite ends of his sentences (or phrases). Sometimes the opposites practically pull each other apart that is, they undermine each other s meaning or transform each other. "Fair is foul and foul is fair." Each word in this tug of war has turned into its opposite. These battles, of course, are played out in the audience's or readers' heads, and the reader/audience can add his or her own biases to the struggle, helping one side to dominate. But in the text, the opposing forces are usually equal, as in Macbeth's line: "So foul and fair a day I have not seen."

The day is as fair as it is foul. But how can a day be both fair (positive) and foul (negative)? It's like saying the weather is sunny and foggy at the same time. To understand the line, you must put yourself in the middle of the tug of war; in other words, you have to rethink the meanings of the words and the relationship between them as they figuratively pull at your brain in opposing directions."

This example shows how NEXUS helps students understand difficult content by linking it to their own experiences.

EXCERPT FROM "FATAL PASSION, THE WAR WITHIN":

"To know my deed, t'were best not know myself."

Is it possible to kill your own conscience? There is a war in all of us. Interior battles are waged every day between our instincts (impulses and appetites) and our conscience, between our passions and our principles. Did your instincts ever tell you to do something, but your conscience held you back? The same war takes place in Macbeth. At the beginning of the play, his conscience is as strong as his lust for power. But after reluctantly killing the king, he gradually tries to kill, or at least numb, the part of himself that distinguishes right from wrong so his dark side can rule.

Many Hollywood movies have been made about the struggle between instinct and conscience, including THE NUTTY PROFESSOR, THE MASK, and DR. JEKYL AND MR. HYDE, the model for the first two. The Star Wars movies and Werewolf flicks are also based on this conflict. Can you explain how?