Welcome to Air Literature, Flight 457, departing for nineteenth-century Boston. Our flying time today is estimated at 75 minutes. Flight attendants: please arm doors for departure.
Beneath your seat you will find in your backpack a book marked The Bostonians by Henry James. Please take it out and follow along as the crew members review the important safety instructions for this flight.
All seatbacks should be upright and tray tables should be down and in the locked position. You will also want paper and some kind of writing implement to be on your tray table at all times so that you can take notes on our flight.
Crew members will shortly be passing through the aisles to hand out an exciting QuizOpportunity so that you can gain more GradeMiles.
All portable electronic devices must be turned to the off position and must be stowed for the remainder of the flight unless you are directed to power them on by a member of the crew. Devices that transmit or receive a wireless signal may not be used on board at any time.
Passengers enrolled in our GradeMiles program will earn 25 participation points toward their GradeRewards card for today's flight.
[To student who stands up to wander out in the hallway for a drink of water]: Sir, you could wander away in a normal classroom, but didn't you hear that the flight attendants had armed the doors for departure?
We now invite you not to sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight but to sit forward, listen, and discuss the book in front of you, since this powers the flight for us all.
Thank you for flying AirLiterature.
13 comments:
Awesome! I'm now fantasizing about doing something like this on the first day of class. Can you imagine how freaked out some students would be? But they would definitely get the point that this class is not school.as.usual.
Love it!
Also, thanks for having something lovely to read when I'm in grading jail. =)
In the case of a drop in student attentiveness, will emergency copies of the syllabi drop from the ceiling?
At my school, the students would be asking whether they could buy beer, wine or selected liquors for $5.00. The answer? Sure, why not?
Thanks, EE! I thought twice about posting something frivolous, but I get tired of bad news everywhere and thought that everyone else might be tired of it, too.
Katrina, I love that idea!
Horace--talk about a way to get them to sit up and pay attention!
Love it! I wonder how many of your readers are going to steal this.
Dame Eleanor, I hope all four of my readers will :).
Cute! I love it!
(of course, if this were true, you'd have students screwing up on purpose so they could be kicked out and get to use the emergency slide --- so watch out!) ;)
I suggest that pop quizzes drop from the ceiling. Worth triple GradePoints.
Love it! What a wonderful way to start a class. I'd becoming back for sure to the next week just to see whether you did this again!
Sisyphus--with beers in hand from Horace's suggestion!
Belle, their eyes would never LEAVE the ceiling, if that were the case.
Anthea, it would leave them guessing--that's for sure.
I thought I had posted a week ago, but no show.
Anyway, I shared this with colleagues (you may have seen a sudden influx of traffic from my neck of the woods) and one snarkily suggested that the Bostonians, when waterlogged, could be used as a flotation device!
Thank you for the giggles, Undine. Truly loved this post.
Stacey--The Bostonians as life preserver--I love it! It would either puff up and save them or drag them to the nether depths with its seeming thousands of pages.
Passengers who engage in extraneous conversation will be ejected through the emergency exit. Oxygen masks will drop for the survivors; place your mask on your face before placing mask on a child.
Post a Comment