1. Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha is a very complex and somewhat complicated text to get through in one sitting. What was your strategy for reading this book? Did you think about each passage and their possible meanings as if we were reading poetry?

2. Cha starts off Dictee with a quote from Sappho, a Greek lyric poet, in which she says “May I write words more naked than flesh, stronger than bone, more resilient than sinew, sensitive than nerve.” The language she uses in the text was not only thought provoking and powerful. but also unique from other forms of life writings we have read in class. What do you think is the purpose of writing the text in the language and style she chose to? Also, do you think the text would have a similar effect on readers if it had not been written in this way?

3. The sections of the Cha’s book was broken down into 9 sections, each starting off with a Greek muse and what they presided over. The connection between each Muse and the text that follows should have some relevance to what they represent. Do you think that Cha made the connections between the women she chose, their story/stories, and the Greek muses?

4. Cha’s work is an example of a text that resembles a life writing piece on collective memory. Using important figures such as Joan of Arc and Yu Guan Soon, along with accounts of herself and her mother, she was able to highlight not only their personal struggles, but also a struggle as a woman in a male dominated society. What do you think was her reasoning for presenting her life writing in this way? What power does collective memory have in addressing the lives of many in past, today, and future societies?

5. On page 32, Cha writes “To the other nations who are not witnesses, who are not subject to the same oppression, they cannot know. Unfathomable the words, the terminology: enemy, atrocities, conquest, betrayal, invasion, destruction… to the others, these accounts are about (one more) distant land, like (any other) distant land, without any discernible features in the narrative, (all the same) distant like any other.” What does this quote say to you and the way you would respond to conversations about personal or shared experiences in life?