[backdated] March 21 || All day

[poeticprivilege]

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?"

Comments

[smallgayjew]

David was certainly impressed by the change. (And a bit relieved, if he were honest with himself.) He dutifully flipped through the syllabus, looking over the list of texts and the expectations for the class.

"Will we be doing all of our reading in class, then?"

[poeticprivilege]

"Nope, just the Canterbury tales!" he chirped, sitting down on the edge of his desk. "I got packets for Gilgamesh, since it's shorter 'n all. Although if you like, when we get to The Hobbit, we can push the desks back, and y'all can bring in your pillows and blankets, have a little slumber party while I read to you aloud like my da used to do."

[smallgayjew]

David couldn't help smiling a bit at that. It reminded him of Hector, though he couldn't quite picture the other boys from Cutlers agreeing to storytime described that way. He nodded in response, satisfied with the answer.

[poeticprivilege]

He... hadn't actually expected that to work. David seemed harder to please than the rest of the students, with high expectations, so he'd really only meant it as a joke, but if he really was okay with it...

It kind of sounded pretty awesome, actually.

"Well, go ahead and pair up, and grab a book," he said, gesturing to the bookcart on one side of the room. "And while you're doing that, anyone wanna hazard a guess as to why The Canterbury Tales is important as a text, besides being hard as balls to read?"

[smallgayjew]

David wasn't one to contradict a teacher in the middle of class, and he was used to literature classes that frequently consisted of him or the other boys singing nonsense or acting out the endings from old movies in the hopes of stumping their teacher.

He arched an eyebrow at the question, only cursorily looking for a partner. "Other than being the first work of its kind?"

He sort of thought the answer was obvious.

[poeticprivilege]

And that was why David was his favorite. Except that really, as a teacher, he ought to remain objective and not have favorites, and it was only the first day of class. Still, any reasonably clever kid would do well to pick the boy as a partner for this, since he already had all the answers.

"That too! It also paints an interesting picture of the time period, specifically about the church and all the weird little things that were going on inside of it. There was a lot of questioning of the authority of the Catholic church going on at the time, and there are a number of different viewpoints expressed through the numerous characters. Which is a big thing, since really, you didn't question the Church back at that time, you just kind of sat back and took it."

"But we don't have to worry about that for a while yet, since we have to get through the prologue first, which is like thirty pages by itself. So pair up, read the prologue, and pick out which characters we'll be hearing stories from!"

[smallgayjew]

David ended up just pairing with the boy sitting next to him. He actually had the prologue memorized--because he had most major works of poetry memorized--and could say it in relatively accurate Middle English.