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For Monday: Yoachim, "We Will Teach You How To Read/We Will Teach You How To Read"



For Monday, we'll read our LAST story from the book, which is the most experimental and difficult to understand. This is a story about writing itself, and how an alien civilization would have to teach us to think like them, before we could read and understand their literature/ideas. Therefore, this story is like a class itself, with the repetitive language of the story trying to lead us through a complicated--yet quite simple--lesson so that we can meet the aliens halfway.

Yoachim, in her author's note, explains that "I wrote this story with the deliberate goal of making readers' brains do a thing that human brains don't generally do: read two things at once" (389). Therefore, there are literally two strands of text in this story, and you have to figure out how to read them, in what order, and with what relationship to each other. Think of it like the frames of a comic book: do you read the pictures first, or the words? 

As you read, also look for the small changes in the repetitive language that might signal a new way of thinking/seeing. But most of all, have fun with it, and don't worry about 'getting' it. It's just an experiment in writing and telling a story. 

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