Lesson Overview 

"The Street of Crocodiles" by Bruno Schultz is an important text in The History of Love.  A real short story or more accurately a panegyric by Bruno Schultz to the town that he grew up in before the Nazis took it over.  It is a favorite of two of Krauss's main characters and it echoes the book within the book (also titled The History of Love - written by the character Leo Gurskey).  Not wanting to give more homework (to read it) and it being a fairly difficult text (it is quite abstract) I came up with this cooperative reading project that can be finished in one class period.  Students get into groups - see the handout - and those groups (ideally 4 students) each take a part of the reading (delineated A,B,C, D - with those parts clearly marked in the text).  As they read they will annotate the text using the guidelines that I give them in the handout (and of course whatever else they feel is important).  They will attempt to read the entire text (there are instructions on the handout, telling them to read but where to start annotating) - but as everyone reads a different pace - a few might not finish.

 The groups will then get together (one of each letter) and talk about the story using the 5 guidelines that they were given - and they will jot down how they would answer those things in the context of the entire story.  As always - time will be short, but the hurried pace actually works quite well with this abstract text - don't think to hard - view it, see it, read it as a stream of consciousness.   Working together as a group, they can discover and figure out so much more than on their own.  

There is also an extra credit assignment at the bottom of the assignment based on a video reaction piece to "The Street of Crocodiles" by the Quay brothers.  I've included a link to the video below.  Please note both "The Street of Crocodiles" and the video contain mature material and judge your class or modify this assignment accordingly.

No Quiz today - so this is a great assignment to give when you want the students to have an extra day of at home reading time.

Thoughts on the Lesson 

Sometimes you just need to figure out a way to introduce an important work - that is referenced in your current text 1) without giving more homework (they have enough reading with The History of Love  2) in a way that they can figure out that work (especially a challenging one like "The Street of Crocodiles" without the teacher always explaining it to them.  Like most days in my class - the students have to be (and they are) focused in order to get done.  It is a great way to fight anxiety and to "train for stress".