English II Whiteboard pop quiz

English II students are the first to do an in-class blogpost / pop quiz for me. Their 5 simple questions all came from in-class discussion, reading, and from stuff easily available on my Evernote Notes for Students notebook.

1. Normalizing—definition in your words + example from something we've read
2. Explain the 3 places something can go wrong when you communicate. (HINT: Shannon-Weaver)
3. Explain Hemingway's Iceberg Principle.
4. Suspension of disbelief—definition in your words + example
5. A) What do you think the metamorphosis was in The Metamorphosis? B) Why?

Extreme focus during a quiz

 

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What if Gregor Samsa mailed Dr. Seuss?

Herr doctor, I find myself, for reasons inexplicable to me or my loving family, to have woken up this morning transformed into a cockroach. I am reasonably certain this is not a dream. Can you help?

Honestly, it's like a match made in heaven: the random weirdness of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis and the creative rhyme-meter of Dr. Seuss. What would happen if the former and the latter got into a conversation?

National Public Radio ( )'s awesome program This American Life, hosted by Ira Glass, recently did a cool fictional letter correspondence between these two literary legends. Below is the audio file, and the transcript is here. Take a peek at this awesomeness!