Discussion Board Questions
1. Choose either Malcolm X or Roxane Gay and do a little internetresearchon them. Who are they? What is their most famous work? What are they known for? Why are they important voices today? What are some interesting facts most people might not know about them?
2. One of the things Malcolm X discovered as he read more and more was the way literature was curated and cherry-picked for educational purposes, thus effectively erasing entire swaths of history and thinking. Do you think this still goes on today? What gaps do you think were present in your education? What things do you wish school would teach everyone that they didn’t in your experience? What do you think motivates people to erase or downplay certain cultures as educators?
3. Gay’s piece talks about the couch a lot.How is this a metaphor?Explain why you think she included it and what it might symbolize. If you were going to write a similar story, what object (not a couch) would you use?
WHERE I WRITE #9: A CABIN ON THE LAKEFRONT
BY ROXANE GAY
May 24th, 2011
I stopped counting when I reached eighteen moves. That was a few moves ago. I am very good at
packing my life into boxes. I know: a) how to wrap my breakables and that it is worth investing
in the thickly padded dish boxes; b) you cannot transport aerosols or fuels and other flammable
substances; c) inevitably something will be missing and something will break; d) you will peel
those numbered stickers identifying your belongings on a bill of lading for months, if not years;
e) the older you get, the harder it is to uproot yourself from the places and people youve grown
to love; f) eventually youll start to feel like youre somewhere that reminds you of home. Or you
wont.
My mother has a rule. When you arrive in a new home, unpack immediately. When a mover
brought a box into the house, she directed him to where to leave that box and she started
unpacking, almost as soon as the box hit the ground. We moved so often it was necessary for her
to quickly establish a sense of normalcy and home.
Last summer, I moved to the central plains from Michigans Upper Peninsula. In some ways, I
am home. Ive lived nearly half my life in the Central Midwest, off and on. I finished my
doctoral program and moved for a job. Students call me professor and I look around wondering
whom theyre talking to. I live in the nicest apartment Ive ever rented. The last place had a
carpeted bathroom and kitchen and no windows. When a stain got into that carpet, there was no
getting it out. The bar for niceness in an apartment may not be that high.
The evening after the movers finished unloading my belongings, my mother called. She asked,
Are you done unpacking? Are you home?
There are few traces of me in this apartment. This is not home. I could walk away.
There is more room in my new apartment than I know what to do with so I occupy very little of
it. I dont know many people here so I write and write and write my way out of my loneliness.
I left someone behind. We are handling the break up terriblyalways talking on the phone, e-
mailing, telling each other too much truth, seeing other inappropriate people, getting jealous,
refusing to let go. Theres a history that justifies this absurdity. Thats what we tell ourselves.
I have a home office where I do not write. It sounds more mature to say home office but really
were talking about a room with a desk and such. My printer sits on the floor. My mother is
appalled. Theres a green filing cabinet with an HRC sticker and a leather pride sticker and a gay
pride sticker. My twenties were crazy. A computer I rarely use sits on the desk alongside a pencil
cup filled with crap. I think of the cup as a tiny trash can. There are no pictures or corkboard
hanging above my desk either at home or in my office on campus. There are no books I might
use to inspire me. There are no writing implements for notes. Theres a plastic set of drawers
filled with nonsense. I love those discount bins in office supply stores. There are also thirty or so
decks of playing cards, and the heavy paper I used to send out cover letters and my vita in the
hopes I would not have to resort to my back up plan upon graduationmoving in with my
parents and working at Barnes & Noble. The paper is really nice.
I dont like writing at a desk. It feels forced, like Im performing the part of writer.
I am always writing in my head. This sometimes makes people think Im aloof.
When I was a kid, I wrote on napkins at the kitchen table. I wrote while lying in bed. I wrote on
the playground during recess, especially in the middle of this tire jungle gym where I pretended I
was invisible. I wrote in church, sneaking a pen in and writing on collection envelopes. I wrote in
my closet, balancing my typewriter on my knees, while holding a flashlight between my thighs.
We moved a lot but my writing was always home. At boarding school, I wrote down by the
water in town, in this nasty little alcove littered with cigarette butts and beer cans. I wasnt
supposed to be there. I smoked and scribble deranged little stories in notebooks and then Id go
to the library and type them out and make my favorite teacher worry by sharing them. In high
school and college, I did theater (behind the scenes) and wrote backstage during shows, using a
flashlight with a gel covering to dim the light. I dropped out of college for a while and went out
west. I got a job. From midnight to eight, I sat in a cramped booth where the walls were lined
with graffiti and petty vandalism from the other girls I worked with. I talked to lonely men while
I wrote about who I imagined them to be. I moved again and got another kind of job working
midnight to eight and I wrote there too, about who you become and the kinds of people you meet
when the rest of the world is asleep.
Once in a while, I try to write in my office on campus, between classes and during office hours
but its hard to concentrate. I stare at a white wall in an office I havent bothered to decorate. I
distract myself with G-Chat and Twitter and Google Reader. I grade. My office is off a busy
hallway so I listen to the aimless chatter of the studentsmostly about drinking and dating.
Their lives seem so torrid. They fascinate me. I try not to turn their lives into storiesthey have
a right to be young.
IKEA does not make a comfortable couch. Last summer, I had just finished five years of
graduate school. I was broke but I needed furniture that could be seen by other faculty members
because that seemed important, mature. I have wine glasses, you see, and now I use them for
drinking wine, at least some of the time. IKEA couches are short, narrow and the leather is
cheap, sticks to bare thighs. Im 63. Stretching comfortably is not an option. I do most of my
writing sitting straight up on this narrow, uncomfortable couch.
There is nothing interesting about where I write but I can write anywhere. Everything about my
writing, for better or worse, comes from inside me. I have always been this way.
I wrote my novel on this stupid couch, wrote hours at a time, every day for three months,
thinking, If I ever get a nice advance, Im going to buy a better couch.
When I moved to Michigans Upper Peninsula, I went sight unseen. A long relationship had
ended so I quit my good, sometimes great job. I moved to the end of the world. I often make big
decisions during profound moments of emotional distress. I never know where Ill end up. The
first few years were rough and lonely. The winters were long, seven months long, so much snow,
the constant whine of snowmobiles, days of darkness. I didnt understand the people, venison
everywhere. At school, there was lots of reading and pretending to understand de Certeau and
Foucault and using big words that arent really words and trying to be smart enough. I wrote in
my living room, in a comfortable armchair, wondering if I would survive five years. Most of my
stories were about exile and escape. Writing was the escape.
There is a cabin on a lake in a place the world has forgotten. I often imagine myself at that cabin,
lying with a man on an open sleeping bag in the dead night heat of summer, staring at the stars in
the sky so clear its hard to make sense of just how beautiful the night can be. Its where the man
I left behind took me to make me feel better when I was feeling too much of everything and
desperately wanting to feel nothing at all. We lost something, but we had each other and we had
that place. It felt like a home.
When we started going to the cabin, I wasnt writing. I didnt care about telling stories. Writing
was the most useless thing in the world. He told me he was taking me to his cabin, didnt ask my
opinion. He Tarzan, me Jane. He joked he was stealing me away from my imaginary friends in
the computer and my dissertation. He was trying to help me find a little peace. Im not a fan of
the woods. Bad things happen in the woods. Ive read fairy tales. Ive been in the woods.
The first time he took me to the cabin, we were driving back from the casino, which is how we
met in a roundabout way, or when he first saw me. I didnt really notice him because, frankly, all
you see at the poker table are white boys. They blend.
We got off the two-lane highway and took a road and then another road, each one getting
progressively narrower, less paved. I tried not to panic. We finally stopped by a mailbox bearing
his last name written in white lettering, literally written. We drove down a long driveway that felt
like it had been recently gutted by wagon wheels. Finally, I saw the outline of a cabin and I
exhaled slowly.
He jumped out of his truck and I slid out after him. He grabbed a flashlight from the toolbox in
the truck bed. He shined the light on the cabin and said, This is mine. I didnt need to look at
his face to know he was smiling. I didnt care what the cabin looked like because it was his and it
mattered to him.
The cabin has three rooms, indoor plumbing, electricity. The floors are made of those wide,
eight-inch wooden planks, the kind you rarely see anymore. The walls are rough hewn, pine.
After a brief tour, he said, Come with me, and we went back outside. We walked along a
narrow path toward the water. The trees were dark and thick above us. In the most remote place
in the world, at the most unexpected and complicated time in my life, he made my world bigger.
The moon, when its high and bright, casts long beams of light across the lake. Its a sight that
makes you believe in something. We sat, quietly, looking out at the water. The long beams of
light looked like they were showing the way to somewhere important. He held my hand, so
tightly, and I buried my face in his shoulder. It was a little easier to breathe.
The cabin became a place where we could forget about the terrible months we were trying to
move past. It was a place where I could write. I need to write so the cabin became a place where
I could feel a little bit alive, a little bit home, more like myself. We spent many weekends there,
stealing away late Friday night, our stuff rattling around in the back of his truck as we sped down
country highways. During the day, he fished or cleaned his guns or walked around in the woods
doing man things, I suppose. I spent most of my time on a lawn chair in front of the cabin,
writing, my laptop warm on my thighs. I would stop every now and then to stare out at the lake,
watching him fish, marveling at how he could sit so perfectly still, so patiently, waiting for the
promise of something.
As I wrote, on the lakefront, I wondered how I ever became the kind of woman who sits outside,
writing and staring at a man fishing while she writes. I lost count of how many stories I wrote out
therethe same story really, told in different ways, me trying to rewrite an ending that couldnt
be rewritten. But I was writing. It was a step.
Back in town, I had nothing to say to other people. I didnt want to write or talk or think. I
wanted to be left alone. I went through the motions, pretended to be fine, did what needed doing.
On the lake though, that hollow, half-life fell away. I was happy to be with him, tried to talk,
wrote and wrote and wrote. He didnt mind how on the lake I got so absorbed in my writing that
everything and anyone around me disappeared. In the evenings, I read aloud what I was working
on. He embraced my writing unconditionally. He embraced me unconditionally, waited patiently
for the promise of me.
To the left of my shitty, uncomfortable couch in my new apartment is a wall that is mostly floor
to ceiling glass, doors onto a balcony, and beyond that, a green, grassy field. I havent gotten
curtains yet so my view is always unobstructed. The developer who built these apartments ran
out of money so the untamed beauty of that field remains. Sometimes, I see a buck galloping
across the field, his muscles straining and wild, followed by a small pack of deer. I think of the
home I left behind, on the lakefront, the place where I started to find my voice again after I lost
it. Along the edges of this field are trees. When he helped me move in, we stood on the balcony
while he smoked. He pointed out to the tree line, told me what kinds of trees we were looking at.
He works with trees for a living and knows such things. He said, Youll have a small piece of
home here. You can look out at those trees and imagine that just beyond those trees, theres
water. You can write.
Theres a guy I see casuallyour interactions are utterly meaningless, but Im human. Its
something to do. He doesnt get the writing thing. Thats what he calls it, the writing thing. He
complains if I cant hang out because Im writing. He complains about the couch and its
discomforts as if I manufactured the couch myself. He asks, When are you going to get curtains
for these windows? as if Im seeking his input on interior decoration. Ive grown fond of my
uncomfortable couch and the bare windows with a view. This is where I write. This is the home I
have made for myself in a place that is not home.
I stare at those trees on the edge of the field behind my apartment all the time. I look right
through those trees so I can see the waters edge. At dusk, the sky on the wide, open prairie is
gorgeousdeep reds and pinks and blues. I take pictures, trying to hold on to a piece of that
wonder. I love thinking about how a beautiful sky stretches from where I am to where the man
from the deep woods is. Hes sitting on the dock with his fishing pole, squinting as he studies a
ripple on the water, waving to me and raising his thumb high in the air as I wave back. Thats
where I write, too.
Roxane Gays writing appears in Best American Mystery Stories 2014, Best American Short
Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, A Public Space, McSweeneys, Tin House, Oxford
American, American Short Fiction, Virginia Quarterly Review, and many others. She is a
contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. She is the author of the books Ayiti, An
Untamed State, the New York Times bestselling Bad Feminist, Difficult Women, and Hunger
forthcoming in 2017. She is also the author of World of Wakanda for Marvel. Roxane was the
founding Essays Editor and is a current Advisory Board member for The Rumpus. You can find
her at roxanegay.com. More from this author Learning to Read
MALCOLM x
lib, QI’Yof Congress
X, Malcolm. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Ed. Alex Haley. New York:
Ballantine, 1965. Print.
Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1925. Essentially orphaned as.1
child, he lived in a series of foster homes, became involved in criminal activity, and dropped
out of school in eighth grade after a teacher told him his race would prevent him from
being a lawyer. In 1945, he was sentenced to prison, where he read voraciously. Aftol JOIII
ing the Nation of Islam, he changed his last name to “X,” explaining in his autobiogldpliy
that “my ‘X’ replaced the white slavemaster name of ‘Little.'” A strong advocate for 1111′
rights of African Americans, Malcolm X became an influential leader in the Nation of I~I,IIII
but left the organization in 1964, becoming a Sunni Muslim and founding an orpanizatlon
dedicated to African American unity. Lessthan a year later, he was assassinated.
In this chapter we excerpt a piece from The Autobiography of Malcolm X, which he
narrated to Alex Haley shortly before his death. We see Malcolm X’s account as exem
plifying many of the principles that Deborah Brandt introduces in “Sponsors of Literacy”
(pp. 44-61). For example, Malcolm X’s account of how he came to reading is remarkable
for how clearly it shows the role of motivation in literacy and learning: when he had a
reason to read, he read, and reading fed his motivation to read further. His account also
demonstrates the extent to which literacies shape the worlds available to people and the
experiences they can have, as well as how literacy sponsors affect the kinds of literacy
we eventually master.
We expect that reading Malcolm X’s experiences in coming to reading will bring up your
own memories of this stage in your life, which should set you thinking about what worlds your
literaciesgive you accessto and whether there are worlds in which you
would be considered “illiterate.” We think you’ll find a comparison of
your experiences and Malcolm X’s provocative and telling.
Framing the Reading
Getting Ready to Read
Before you read, do at least one of the following activities:
Do some reading online about Malcolm X and his biography
Start a discussion with friends, roommates, family, ell C1,155
mates about whether, and how, “knowlcdqo I’. PIlWfll ”
11″
1)11 IIIAriin 11111’1,,111′
/I, you /t’,rel, WI1W!!’1 llH’ InlillWII’C) ‘1,” …111111,
I low would Malcolm X’s lift’ “”VI’ III’I’ll dilfl’1!’111 11Ills literacy experien((‘~ hold 111’1’11
IIII((lI(,l1t7 .
I low was Malcolm X’s literacy Inextricably entangled with his life experiences, rus
‘cI(C, and the religion he chose?
Ilow do Malcolm X’s early literacy experiences and literacy sponsors compare to
your own?
………………………………………………………….. ” .
Itwas bec:l.use of my letters that I happ~ned to stumble upon starting to 1ncquire some kind of a homemade education.
I became increasingly frustrated
,I 110tbeing able to express what I
wanted to convey in letters that I
wrorc, especially those to Mr. Eli-
j,h Muhammad. Tn the street, I had
lx-cn the most articulate hustler out
Ihen ..’-! had commanded attention
when ! said something. But now,
trying lO write simple English, I
‘101 only wasn’t articulate, Iwasn’t
even functional. How would I
sound writing in slang, the way I would say it, something such as “Look, daddy,
k,t 1111: pull your coat about a cat, Elijah Muhammad-”
Many who today hear me somewhere in person~ or on television, or ~hose 3
who read something I’ve said, win think I went to school far beyond the eighth
gradi.’. This impression is due entirely to my prison studies. ., ,
” had really begun back in the Charlestown Prison, when Bimbi first made 4
IIH’ [eel envy of his stock of knowledge. Bimbi had always taken charge o! any
c ouvcrsarion he was in, and I had tried to emulate him. But every book I picked
lip had few sentences which didn’t contain anywhere from one to nearly all of
Ihe words that might as well have been in Chinese. When J just skipped those
words, of course, I really ended up with little idea of what the book said, So I
had COIlIC to the Norfolk Prison Colony still going through only book-reading
Il101ions, Pretty soon, I would have quit even these motions, unless I had re-
ll’ived thc motivation that Idid.
I ~;W lh;11 thc best thing Icould do was get hold of a dictionary-to study, 5
III klHIl some words, [ was lucky enough to reason a.lso that 1 should try to
1I11proV(‘ my penmanship, It was sad, I couldn’t evcn wri.rc ,in ;t stnlij.hl li’,le,
II wn~ hOlh iLk-::ls together that moved me to reqlll’si n thCllo’I.ry lliollg With
>,OllleI:hkl~ and pCl1cils from the Norfolk Prisol1 (:oll1llv fll hlllli
I ~1)l”11IWOd:lY~ jllst riming nncertninly Ihrolll’,I, 1111 alii 11111111 ‘,. P”II’S, J’d 6
III’V!” ‘l’;dl/(‘(l.,o Illlllly wnnis l’xisll’dl I didll’l 11111\11″1″ I, “”llh I III’I’tI(‘1I 10
11′,111111111111),,111.., III “1,1” ..,111111′ killd (11ilL 111111,11″1III “P 1i11
_…,. .o ~ – “” ”’
In the street, I had been the most
articulate hustler out there-I had
commanded attention when / said
something. But now, trying to write
simple English, I not only wasn’t
articulate, I wasn’t even functional.
“…. ‘”‘ ~. .. . . ..
2
MAIIIIIMX 11111111111111111111 111
.111 Ill~ slow, p:lil1”(“kllll, 1’1′,1′,1 d 11,111″” “I'”~:,IU)PIL’d into Illy t”l1k’l ~’V(“}’
thlllg printed on Ihn! (111I”‘gl’, dO\,lI 10 II”, pum tuuuou marks.
I believe it took IIH’ ,I d.I), 111″11, .iluud, I read back, to myself, cvcryt hiru; H
I’d written on the tablet. OV!”- .uul over, aloud, to myself, ) read m}’ OWIl
h.mdwriting.
I woke up the next morning, thinking about those words+-immenscly proud .,
10 realize that not only had Iwritten so much at one time, but I’d written
words that Inever knew were in the world. Moreover, with a little effort, I also
could remember what many of these words meant, I reviewed the words whose
meanings Ididn’t remember. Funny thing, from the dictionary first page right
IIOW,that “aardvark” springs to my mind, The dictionary had a picture of ir,
il long-tailed, long-eared, burrowing African mammal, which lives off termites
1,.’:1 ught by sticking out its tongue as an anteater does for ants.
!was so fascinated that Iwent on-1 copied the dictionary’s next page. And 10
the same experience came when I studied that. With every succeeding page, I
nlso learned of people and places and events from history. Actually the diction
.uy is like a miniature encyclopedia, Finally the dictionary’s A section had filled
; whole tablet-and I went on into the B’s. That was the way I started copying
what eventually became the entire dictionary. It went a lot faster after so much
practice helped me to pick up handwriting speed. Between what Iwrote in my
t.iblct, and writing letters, during the rest of my time in prison I would gU(‘~~I
wrote a million words.
I suppose it was inevitable that as my word-base broadened, Icould j(1I II
rhe first time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand what tlH’
book was saying. Anyone who has read a great deal can imagine the new world
rhnr opened, Let me tell you something: from then until I left that prison, ill
every free moment Ihad, if Iwas not reading in the library, Iwas reading Oil
Illy bunk, You couldn’t have gotten me out of books with a wedge. Between
M r, Muhammad’s teachings, my correspondence, my visitors-usually Ella :’111t!
Reginald-and my reading of books, months passed without my even thinking
.ihout being imprisoned, In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in
Illy life.
The Norfolk Prison Colony’S library was in the school building. A variety of I)
classes was taught there by instructors who came from such places as Harvard
.ind Boston universities. The weekly debates between inmate teams were also
held in the school building. You would be astonished to know how worked up
L ouvict debaters and audiences would get over subjects like “Should Babies Ik
Fl’d Milk?”
Available on the prison library’S shelves were books on just abollt every gCI1 ‘I
t’,;11 subject, Much of the big private collection that Parkhurst had willed to thl’
pri~()n was still in crates and boxes in the back of the library-thousands of old
hoob. Somc of them looked ancit’nl: covcrs fadcd, old-time parchment-look ifig
hilldilll-, Parkhurst, I’ve l11rntiolll’d, Nt’I’I1t1’1I III h,lve been principally infert’Sh’d
ill hislory rind religion, 11(‘ IHid IIII’ 1III1111’V’Ilid ill(‘ special intcrest 10 h:lv!’ il
10101′ hooblhat you would”‘1 !til 1 11111111,.tII Il’Lld,l1ion. Any collcgl’ lihl’ll’Y
Vllldd havl’ lwl”’ lucky 10 gt I III II I “lit 1111111
(, )011 ~.IIII1I1.If..IIII”I~IWll.,II)’111.11″1till \1111 11111W,’~ h,.IVYlmph.ISIS II
Oil rchnhiliuuiou, all inmate W.1S1,111111’1111)’1111II III “11111111 “.IIId .111unusually
intense interest in books. There W:1′ .1I,I/,d,l. 1IIIIIIhii lit well l’I’;,d inmates, cs-
pccially the popular debaters. SOl11t’W,’II’ ….11.1 h 111;111III Ill’ pr.11tically walk-
ing encyclopedias. They were almost cclchnt ics. No 111111’1 ~IIYwould ask any
student to devour literature as I did when this new wor ld opl’Ill’d 10 me, of
being able to read and understand.
[ read more in my room than in the library itself. An inmate who was known 15
to read a lot could check out more than the permitted maximum number of
books. I preferred reading in the total isolation of my own room.
When 1 had progressed to really serious reading, every night at about ten 16
P.M. 1 would be outraged with the “lights out.” It always seemed to catch me
right in the middle of something engrossing.
Fortunately, right outside my door was a corridor light that cast a glow into 17
my room. The glow was enough to read by, once my eyes adjusted to it. So when
“lights out” came, Iwould sit on the floor where I could continue reading in
that glow.
At one-hour intervals the night guards paced past every room. Each time 18
I heard the approaching footsteps, I jumped into bed and feigned sleep. And
.IS soon as the guard passed, 1 got back out of bed onto the floor area of that
light-glow, where I would read for another fifty-eight minutes-until the guard
approached again. That went on until three or four every morning. Three or
four hours of sleep a night was enough for me. Often in the years in the streets
I had slept less than that.
The teachings of Mr. Muhammad stressed howhistory had been “whitened”- 19
when white men had written history books, the black man simply had been
left out. Mr. Muhammad couldn’t have said anything that would have struck
me much harder. Ihad never forgotten how when my class, me and all of those
whites, had studied seventh-grade United States history back in Mason, the
history of the Negro had been covered in one paragraph, and the teacher had
gotten a big laugh with his joke, “Negroes’ feet are so big that when they walk,
they leave a hole in the ground.”.
This is one reason why Mr. Muhammad’s teachings spread so swiftly all 20
over the United States, among all Negroes, whether or not they became fol-
lowers of Mr. Muhammad. The teachings ring true-to every Negro. You can
hardly show me a black adult in America-or a white one, for that matter-
who knows from the history books anything like the truth about the black
man’s role. In my own case, once I heard of the “glorioLls history of the black
man,” I took special pains to hunt in the library for books that would inform
me on details about black history.
r can remember accurately the very fust set of books that really impressed 21
me. I have since bought that set of books and have it at home for my children
In read as they grow up. It’s called Wonders of the World. It’s full of pictures of
.Ircheological finds, statues that depict, usually, non-European people.
MAl( III M Ie l 1111111’1 ‘” III lid U!l
1111111111hlllll,~ II!-<'Wtlll )111'(1111'N,'ffll I'll/I II'tI, ,1f/1I11. l u-ud II. C. W('II~' ( )111 IHI" 1I/III,f,1I ", .)011" 11/ HIII( k 1'011.: h \" I , 1. I hi IIlI" g.lvc Ilil' ,I glIlIlJll' 111111 II" Ill." k p"lIpk'~ history before they ~,IIIII'III till" c uuutry, Caner (;. W()()d~oll N".'!I" 11"luI)I opened my eyes about hl.u k l'IIIP"TS before the black slave wu ... hllllll~hl In till' United States, and the early Negro struggles for freedom. I, (. I{ogt'rs' three volumes of Sex and Race told about race-mixing bclor.: 'I ( IImt 11I1ll';about Aesop being a black man who told fables; about Egypl I'lIoIl,1(Ih...; about the great Coptic Christian Empires; about Ethiopia, llw IIlh olde!'.t continuous black civilization, as China is the oldest continuous , IVIII/,Ilion. Mr. Muhammad's teaching about how the white man had been created led 'I 1111' III hl/(lill1-:s ill Genetics by Gregor Mendel. (The dictionary's G section wa .. Whl'II' I lind learned what "genetics" meant.) r really studied this book by the (" ..111.111monk. Reading it over and over
