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You've run afoul of a number of monstrous texts in the course

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thus far, you've had to slay some truly terrifying vocab words defend yourself [Woman hitting away books with a stick]

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against antiquated sentence structures and yank the meaning of a document right

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out of a mess of complicated paragraphs, yet here you are you've survived if there [Bomb explodes a group of monster books]

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was a Shmoop equivalent of a Purple Heart we'd be awarding it to you right now. But

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the fight is not over instead we're going to toss you into the arena with a [Woman is chucked into a boxing ring]

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doosie of a modern piece that's right even texts that have been written recently

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can prove difficult for readers, the concept. The language isn't necessarily [Woman hits 'The Quilt of a Country' out the ring]

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as tough as it is in some of those early American documents containing words that

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seem to be made up, but modern authors will often play with you like a

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troll with a nanny goat. They don't do straightforward Aristotelian arguments [Goat headbutts the troll]

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they like inferences and allusions and structural and syntactical

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complexities, say that 3 times fast. And metaphors yeah there's always metaphors.

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Well it may make a modern text off-putting to the inexperienced reader

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don't worry though we're here to help you. Whenever you get a piece like a [Man studying behind a computer is glad Shmoop is here to help]

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quilt of a country which you'll be reading for this lesson go through it

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once for pleasure, you heard us right. Savor that sucker like an ice-cold coke

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on a hot summer day chew on it a bit the way you would the gristle on a steak or [Someone throws a bottle of coke onto the ground and it explodes and shoots off]

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the way you chew on tofu skin for you vegans. Now that you've read the text

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ones it's time to read it again. This time though you're going to read the [Woman reading in the sea]

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document in order to understand it, think about the words you're seeing like what

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did they actually mean. How can you summarize what the author is saying so [Woman looks confused]

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it actually makes sense, hard work give yourself a pat on the [Boy studying looks glad]

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back there and get ready to read a quilt of a country a third time. Seriously

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please don't hate us, here is where you're going to analyze the text what's [Woman hitting 'A Quilt Of A Country' again]

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the author's claim and all that. What ideas are woven through the text well

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don't worry we're not going to make you read it a [Guy playing video game]

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fourth time you can read a Shmoop on it as well please.

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But you know if you've got nothing else to do... no no.. read the shmoop on it it's

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much better.

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