1] In his article, “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial,” King discusses Robinson’s collection of stories. King explains that while the stories are written in English, “the patterns, metaphors, structures as well as the themes and characters come primarily from oral literature.” More than this, Robinson, he says “develops what we might want to call an oral syntax that defeats reader’s efforts to read the stories silently to themselves, a syntax that encourages readers to read aloud” and in so doing, “recreating at once the storyteller and the performance” (186). Read “Coyote Makes a Deal with King of England”, in Living by Stories. Read it silently, read it out loud, read it to a friend, and have a friend read it to you. See if you can discover how this oral syntax works to shape meaning for the story by shaping your reading and listening of the story. Write a blog about this reading/listening experience that provides references to the story.
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The first time I read “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King of England” I was so confused and I really had no idea half the time what was going on. In hindsight I was skimming and in order to properly understand this text I found that I had to slow down and read out loud. I read this text three times. First I read it quickly and in my head, then I read it out loud to a friend, and finally I had my friend read it to me.
As I said before, my first attempt was a little bit of a failure, my second attempt however gave me a new perspective on the entire text. I found that the sentences that before had made no sense at all, now flowed with ease and even the mistakes and oddities within the text didn’t seem to matter as much. It wasn’t an immediate transformation however, it did take me a few pages to allow the words to flow and to stop being so focused on the text itself. I feel that often as students we are taught to read in the same way that we wright. This I feel, makes us susceptible to every word that we read. This method of reading takes a lot of effort! I’m sure many of you have read a paragraph and realized that you have absolutely no idea what you just read, then you go back and read the paragraph again word for word to understand what it was that your brain skimmed over the first time. I feel that in this text you are forced to read the words as if they were your own, and simply on the page as a guideline for the direction of the story. Without making your own changes mentally as you read it out loud, it really makes no sense. Once you allow your mouth to make the small changes as you go and to stop fixating on the words themselves the story comes together.
The third time, I had my friend read the story to me. This was a different experience all together because as much as she initially struggled, I simply listened and absorbed the words that she was saying. Although at this point I was pretty clear on the story I felt that listening was the most natural way to hear this story. When I was reading out loud I still had to process the words that I said, when the story was told to me I felt that there was no restriction placed on the meaning. My friend initially though that the story was a little odd, however she did not feel that her comprehension of the story was greater after having read it out loud. I found this very interesting because I found that after having the story told to me, I had more understanding. Perhaps had I had the story read to me initially, I would not have not struggled so much to understand the story in the first place.
Check out a blog posted by Scicurious, there is a very interesting post on silent reading and how our brains process written word when reading in our own heads. Although I agree with the post, I do feel that they should have acknowledged the difference between how we perceive text when we read silently and when we read out loud, instead of simply focusing on how our brains process silent reading.
– Jennifer
Works Cited
King, Thomas. “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial.” Unhomely States: Theorizing English-Canadian Postcolonialism. Mississauga, ON: Broadview, 2004. 183- 190.
Robinson, Harry. “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King Of England.” Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Ed. Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2005. 64-85.
“Silent Reading isn’t so Silent, at Least, not to your Brain.” Blog Post. Neurotic Physiology. Scientopia, Jan 23, 2013. Web. Feb. 13, 2015.
Hey Jennifer!
Nice work on colour coordinating your blog! You’ve clearing come a long way! I am interested in how you got the pink as a background.. I would love to add some colour to my blog!
I felt the exact same way reading the story as you did at first. Nothing seemed to make sense and I found the whole process of reading the story extremely confusing and I also found that it took a long time just to get the gist of what was going on and why certain events were happening. I also found that the story was clearer with someone else reading the story to me on my 4th or 5th time that I was actually hearing the story. I have a question about the whole process though and I was wondering if you found the same thing. Do you think you understood the story better the third time around because someone else was reading it to you and that they made the story make sense? Or do you think because this was indeed your third time hearing the same story, that you were now familiar with what was going on? Do you think the whole process of reading the story to yourself or by someone else made a difference in your interpretation of it, or just enhanced what you already knew?
Sorry for the overload of questions! I am just curious because I am torn with my answers as well!
Great post!
Jessica R
Hi Jessica,
I honestly have no idea how I changed the background to pink, I actually thought I was doing something else and it just happened. I’m pretty sure that it was something in the “customize” section but I could be wrong.
I also felt that my process of coming to understand the story was confusing, and this blog post took me the longest to write because I needed a couple of days to sit with the story and process it. Personally I found that reading the story myself I got caught up in the oddities and the structure. When I had the story read to me, I didn’t feel that this was an issue. However, it is very possible that I was simply more familiar with the story. You pose a very good question, I’m just not sure if we will ever truly know the answer.
Thanks for the comment and the great questions,
– Jennifer
Hey Jennifer, thanks for sharing your experience of the reading process. I like that you reference how we are taught to read as students (the same way we write), with a critical eye for detail and a fine-tooth comb to pick out any irregularities. This is a pretty useless approach to stories, as they follow a pattern that is completely different from academic discourse and academe in general. You note that when you had the story told you it was easier to experience the story, simply absorbing the words and meaning without trying to analyze it. I think the blog you link is a perfect connection to this; if our brains naturally respond differently to reading as opposed to listening, and we are then taught to distance these two actions even further, it is not hard to see why we need a different approach when it comes to understanding and studying storytelling (and orality more generally).
Hey Jennifer, thanks for sharing your experience of the reading process. I like that you reference how we are taught to read as students (the same way we write), with a critical eye for detail and a fine-tooth comb to pick out any irregularities. This is a pretty useless approach to stories, as they follow a pattern that is completely different from academic discourse and academe in general. You note that when you had the story told you it was easier to experience the story, simply absorbing the words and meaning without trying to analyze it. I think the blog you link is a perfect connection to this; if our brains naturally respond differently to reading as opposed to listening, and we are then taught to distance these two actions even further, it is not hard to see why we need a different approach when it comes to understanding and studying storytelling (and orality more generally).
Nicolas Thomson