THIS IS A THREE PART EVENT: SUNDAYS, FEBRUARY 1, 15, AND MARCH 1.

The U.S. has a shocking literacy crisis, with 50% of adults unable to fully engage with complex texts. The real issue isn’t just reading, it is that many of us were never taught how to handle a book, dissect its contents, and retain what we read for later discussion.

Reading is not only an intellectual ability.  It is a spiritual and emotional practice that can be profoundly grounding. We are all capable of deep and sustained thought. We can all see patterns, structures and connections. It is easy to lose touch with that, which only helps existing power structures. Thus, reading is a powerful tool to resist fascism and critically engage with our lives and the world around us.

Join Dr. Rebecca Hall, author of Wake, for a spirited workshop series where she will guide participants on how to read deeply, and how to develop an effective annotation system that works for you to help you retain crucial knowledge. We will study Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, a foundational text that reveals the history and consequences of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and how it shaped Africa, which ultimately made it easier to colonize and then exploit that continent. This book provided a crucial intervention into the concept that colonization provided anything but destruction to Africa. They might have built roads, but they all led to the Sea, Rodney pointed out.

Workshop 1: Introducing the book, and learning Dr. Hall’s Meta-Reading method, which includes an annotation structure. Dr. Hall will provide seminar-style discussion questions, that will guide your engagement with the text.

Workshop 2: discussion of the first half of the book. Students will actively use the annotation structure to prepare for discussion. Dr. Hall and students will develop the seminar-style discussion questions that will guide our engagement with the next half. Students and Dr. Hall co-create other annotation systems for other meta-approaches to reading non-fiction.

Workshop 3: Discuss the second half of the book. Discuss meta-reading and creative approaches for advanced non-fiction literacy. Celebrate a new superpower!

Requirements:

You need a paper copy of the book that you can write all over. No ebooks. Fight me later, I will explain why. Bring pen/pencil and post-it tabs.

You must commit to reading 30 minutes a day during the workshop period. Set this time aside mindfully. You want a time of day and location where you can be mentally alert and remain undistracted by outside forces

Accessibility:

Wheelchair accessible.

Rapid covid tests required:  we will provide.

Do not wear perfume or scented products because they give Dr. Hall a migraine.