Anyone expecting the tattoo'd hooligan from the week before to slouch into the Brit Lit classroom would be sorely mistaken. No, the man who waltzed in was neatly pressed, dressed in the appropriate school attire with his hair slicked back, and not a trace of a piercing or make-up on his face. True to his previous assertions, Kalvin Gottfried did, in fact, clean up nice.
"Hello class," he chirped, walking up to the whiteboard and grabbing the blue marker, writing his name and British Literature. When he finished, he turned and clasped his hands in front of his chest, smiling out at the class. "It's so good to see your smiling, eager faces! I'm Kalvin Gottfried, welcome to Brit Lit! If that is not the class you thought it was, feel free to get up and go now."
"That is not, however," he added, picking up a stack of papers and moving to pass them to the student sitting in the the first desk of the front row. "Permission to pretend this is not your class and walk out anyway. We do have to take attendance, after all! Which is what I'm doing now. This is the class's syllabus, and there is one for each of you, I counted them. If there's any left over, then I will have to actually do role call, but for now, this works."
"At the top of the syllabus, you'll notice we're doing The Canterbury Tales and The Epic of Gilgamesh. One of these things is not British, it's ancient Sumerian. However, Gilgamesh is widely regarded as the oldest recorded text, and I think it's important to appreciate the old before you can appreciate the new. I mean it, after reading Gilgamesh, you will appreciate Twilight on a whole new level that you never expected possible."
"The same goes for the Canterbury Tales. I've chosen the version written in Middle English just so you can get the
full experience of it, and you will find that though not many of the words are particularly complicated, it'll feel like you're reading a whole 'nother language."
He paused, looking at the class meaningfully. "This is what it feels like for adults trying to read your text speak, by the way. So if I catch any of it in my class, I will make you read sections of the Canterbury Tales again as homework, along with write an essay on the importance of unified language, okay?"
"Now, any questions before we start?"
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