Scene Description
Several students sit around a table in a library. Their books, digital devices, and notebooks are out on the table. While they talk, other students work quietly in the background. Throughout the video, students step away from the group for one-on-one interviews about their discussion.

Transcript

01:08 CHLOE: Wow, what these people are willing to go through just to get someplace else.
01:12 MONICA: You'd have to be really desperate...
01:14 ISAIAH: Where's the evidence for that?
01:15 CHLOE: She says they were desperate.
01:17 Where is it.... Here!
01:19 "My mother was clutching her side and gasping for breath, trying to keep up.
01:23 I felt desperate to get through, because the sun was setting,
01:26 and if we got stuck here, what were we going to do?
01:28 Where would we stay?
01:30 There was nothing here, no town, no hotel, no buildings, just the desert." See?
01:36 Desperate--- that's exactly how she's feeling.
01:38 MONICA: Good find, Chloe!
01:39 ISAIAH: I'd be feeling desperate, too!
01:41 How can you survive in the desert like that, with nothing?
01:44 I'm telling you, no more complaining.
01:46 Reading the story made me feel trapped and desperate...
01:50 if you feel it, then it's there-- you just gotta find it---
01:53 the evidence to support it, I mean!

Scene Description
Several students sit around a table in a library. Their books, digital devices, and notebooks are out on the table. While they talk, other students work quietly in the background. Throughout the video, students step away from the group for one-on-one interviews about their discussion.

Transcript

01:55 Trapped in the desert.
01:56 Sick mom. No food. No water.
02:00 CHLOE: No money.
02:01 ISAIAH: Which wouldn't matter
02:02 if you're in the middle of the desert with nothing around you.
02:04 But listen here... I learned that it was all a question of money.
02:08 Someone told me about this, and then I watched closely and saw that it was true.
02:12 Throughout the day, while some of the guards confronted the crowds,
02:15 a few others lounged over to the side.
02:17 People approached them quietly.
02:19 Money changed hands, and the guards
02:20 then let those people quietly through a small door to the side.
02:24 Those guards there were taking bribes, just like in the movies.
02:27 CHLOE: Only this is real life, non-fiction!
02:30 ISAIAH: I knew shady stuff was going on.
02:32 That money thing?
02:33 That was the evidence.
02:35 It' always there somewhere if you read closely.
02:38 The guards just "lounged" around waiting for people to pay.
02:41 CHLOE: Ahmedi and her mom deserved to be free, too,
02:44 even if they didn't have money.
02:46 That's not right.
02:47 ISAIAH: Like I said, I'm never complaining again.
02:50 CHLOE: I think we can 'infer' this book really made a big impression on Isaiah.
02:53 Lots of evidence of that!

Read this passage (paragraphs 9 and 10) from “The Other Side of the Sky.” Then answer the follow-up questions.

"His wife then told him our story, and Ghulam Ali took pity on us. “Yes, of course you can come with us,” he said. “But you have had two hard days. You will need some rest before you attempt this mountain crossing. Spend tonight here and sleep well, knowing that you will have nothing to do tomorrow except lounge around, rest, and catch your breath. Tomorrow, do not throw yourself against those border guards again. Let your only work be the gathering of your strength. Then tomorrow night we will all go over the mountain together, with God’s grace. I will show you the way. If God wills it, we will follow that smugglers’ path to safety. You and your mother are in my care now.”
 
So we spent the whole next day there. It was terribly warm and we had no water, but we walked a little way and found a mosque that refugees like us had built over the years, so that people waiting to get across the border would have a place to say their prayers. We got some water to drink at the mosque, and we said namaz there too. Somehow we obtained a little bit of bread as well. I can’t remember how that turned up, but there it was, and we ate it. We sustained our strength. After sunset we lay down just as if were going to spend another night. In fact, I did fall asleep for a while. Long after dark--or early the next morning, to be exact, before the sun came up--that man shook us awake. “It’s time,” he said."