isaacmarion

Um, I’m not entirely sure how to go about asking this, but here I go. In the highly unlikely chance you read this before November 10^th, I have this project to do, as part of the English IB curriculum, called an IOP (Independent Oral Presentation. Yeah, IB has a thing for acronyms). Students are given a truly daunting total of 15 minutes to discuss a piece of literature. We are to elaborate on any aspect of it, ranging from theme, symbolism (and types used), techniques the author uses to present the characters to the audience, character development, what the author is trying to tell the audience on a specific topic, and all that other fun stuff. Naturally, I wanted to do my project on a book I was passionate about. I had toyed with the idea of writing my IOP on R, but I wasn’t sure what I would want to focus on. Frankly, “What does this depressed living-wanna-be, that is R, teach us about the power of love?”, sounded so unbearably cheesy and painfully unoriginal.  After some intense staring-at-the-wall-of-my-room procrastination, I have decided to focus on “What is the author trying to tell us about humanity, human nature, and what it means to be human?” Or one of the three, because apparently, the number one mistake students make when doing an IOP, is being too broad. If you’ve read up to here, I’m not only appalled, but hopeful.  That means you’re not one of those stuck up authors that think their royal asses are too good for us peasant readers, and might actually consider my request.

The IB English-20 class is pretty ruthless and competitive, and we are all at each other’s necks to have the better presentation. People are coming up with all sorts of questionable tactics to make their IOP stand out from the rest. But dramatic monologues and uncomfortable audience participation would be nothing compared to an IOP done through the collaboration of the author. It wouldn’t be much, just a few questions here and there about certain quotes and characters from your book. I’d love to sound collected and not desperate, but screw appearances. I’m begging you, as a zombie on the inside IB student to the author of one of the best books on the planet; please, if you get the chance, email me at  lenkachernakova@yahoo.ca and help me do something no one has ever done before in the history of IOP’s.

-Lenka

There are so many run-on sentences in the paragraph, it would give my English teacher a heart attack.