By reading the passages on Malcolm X, Richard Wright, and Sherman Alexie it is only obvious that reading brought enlightenment to their lives, and all three authors have a lot in common. These significant people felt trapped in some form, and their insatiable hunger for reading set them free. They were all fascinated with the act of reading, and they all taught themselves, and gave themselves the education needed to enlighten and influence others. Discovering how to read provided many opportunities beyond their imagination, it empowered these individuals, as if being a minority didn’t matter anymore.…
In this text, Sherman Alexie talks about how he learned to read. He explains why he wanted to read. During his life, he read many different books. He even says in the article that he read anything that had paragraphs or words. The quote, “Despite all the books I read, I am still surprised I became a writer,” means that even though he had read many books, he didn’t think he could try to become a writer.…
In the Moyers interview of Sherman Alexie numerous things stood out to me, that I have never known about or never looked at in a certain way. The biggest of which is the signing of a paper ordering the death of 38 Indians by Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln is widely known as one of the best presidents in the history of the U.S. and that he never did anything wrong. This impossible however for a human being, but his signature on the paper was contradicting what he was supporting to gain more rights for everyone. This was covered up from most Americans however because of the maybe damaging a hero's identity. The Natives never did not know about this, as Alexie says in the interview that they always knew about executions and were usually afraid of them.…
Sherman Alexie makes his life seem interesting by telling us, in his story, the joy of reading and writing: superman and me. In his story he tells us how he grew up, what he grew up doing, how his life style was, and how he became the man he is today. Sherman also talks about teaching himself how to read. He was a very smart Indian boy who loved to read just like his father did. He stated that he loved his father so much, and his father loved to read, so he said he would love reading too. He was only three years old when he started reading, but taught himself how to read by saying words with the pictures that he seen. “Aloud, I pretend to say the words” Sherman said. When he was able to understand the meaning of paragraph, Sherman said “The words inside a paragraph worked together for a common purpose.” His examples were his house, the reservation, and other family's houses too. To him he could see each family member of his as their own paragraph.…
In his essay “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” Sherman Alexie claimed that it was reading and knowledge which saved his life. Because, besides reading and books, his family and background was the same as other Indians who lived in the reservation: poor and underprivileged. Alexie then recalled how his father read as many books as possible, which made himself a role model to the author. Under his father’s influence, Alexie picked up books before he could read. Although he couldn’t understand the meanings, he had the concept of paragraph and related it to reality that paragraphs were fences that separated different groups of people. Just like Indians were separated from the main society belonged to white people. The first time Alexie learned to read was by assuming what might Superman said in a comic picture. He learned to read in this way and became very talented while others kids couldn’t read as he did. However, when he grew up into a man, he often spoke his story in the third person in order to dull the pain for his miserable childhood while Indians were expected to be stupid and fail in non-Indian world. Nevertheless, Alexie was smart, arrogant and lucky. His family has many books and he read as much as he could so that he could save his life. Now, as a successful writer, Alexie visited schools in reservations as often as possible. By reading, Alexie had his own voice and saved his life. Now he tried hard to save other Indian children’s life.…
Our very first lesson is to become literate in the language we speak from reading alphabets to novels, we try to achieve literacy. Many people have come to believe that there are many ways to achieve literacy. However, some of the greatest public speakers and writers did not achieve it through the way most people did. This is illustrated in the literary work of Malcolm X, Sherman Alexie and Anne Lamott. According to these people, literacy isn’t achieved by simply going to school. It’s achieved through great determination and through great persistence.…
Who knew that one of the most meaningful writers at a young age knew and taught himself how to read! How did he manage to do this? What is it like to try and change a certain action that everyone else does? Sherman Alexie was just six months old when he had started to experience a life-changing process. His life was between in life or death.…
This is discussed in Francine Prose essay, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read.” Prose explains how not only is education important and that we have good teachers to teach but also that the teachers are teaching good material. Prose says in her essay, “... I find myself, each September, increasingly appalled by the dismal list of texts that my sons are doomed to waste a school year reading.” ( Prose, 1). In this quote Prose very clear passion for proper education is shown. Prose helps to state the fact that we must not waste our time of education reading literature that is bland and bad for the education of students. It is most crucial that we instill a passion of wanting to read and learn into students. Without this passion then we cannot properly educate children. And without properly educating them then they can not attain their highest ability of functioning in…
Rex Murphy’s “To Read or Not to Read” is a literary criticism on the works “How to Read and Why” written by Harold Bloom. Murphy explains his views on the importance of reading and asks the question “Why do we read?” His response to this question, he states “Plainly, we read because while it is not necessary to life that we do, life is much easier, more accessible, wider in its potential for those who can and do read, than for those who cannot and do not”. This essentially means that although reading is not a necessity to what we do in life, it makes what we do easier. Further on in this piece, Murphy states that literature teaches and delights and that we read to learn or to find pleasure. This point is extremely correct. Two major reasons…
“Didn’t i realize that reading would open up whole new worlds? A book could open doors for me. It could introduce me to people and show me places I never imagined existed. She gestured towards the bookshelves . (Bare-breasted African women danced, and the shiny hubcaps of automobiles on the back covers of the geographic gleamed in my mind.) I listened with respect. But her words were not very influential. I was thinking then of another consequence of literacy, one i was too shy to admit but nonetheless trusted. Books were going to make me “educated.” That confidence enabled me, several months later, to over come my fear of the silence.…
"Just simply teaching a child to read is not enough; we must provide them something that is worth reading. Material that will make their imaginations grow - materials that will help them to understand their own lives and push them towards interacting with others who 's lives are completely different than there own" (Paterson).…
Alexie’s belief is right because the more someone reads is the more knowledge someone gains. This helps people in life because it allows them to be smart in the world and it can teach them to express themselves in a positive way. In his essay states, “ The indian kids crowd the classroom. Many are writing their own poems, short stories and novels.” This shows that the indian kids are learning to read and write as well as express themselves which will give them a better place in society. Earlier in his essay before he states that he talks about himself when he was in school. He states “ In all my years in the reservation school system, I was never taught how to write poems, short stories or novels.” He also talks about never seeing any guest teachers in the school and that is why he tries to visit as much as possible. He tries to save their lives as indians by encouraging them to pick up books, so that way they won’t be known as stupid or won’t need pity but so they can have a important role in…
The idea of reading has become very unpopular to many people across the world over the past few decades. According to Jordan Weissmann, the author of the article, “The Decline of the American Book Lover”, many people of our generation have stopped reading and have become unintelligent. She says, “The Pew Research Center reported last week that nearly a quarter of American adults had not read a single book in the past year. As in, they hadn't cracked a paperback, fired up a Kindle, or even hit play on an audiobook while in the car. The number of non-book-readers has nearly tripled since 1978”( Weissman). Books provide something that nothing else could ever provide, knowledge. Many could argue that if teachers provide and give us education, what's the point of reading a book? They have forgotten that the only way teachers could’ve gotten the knowledge to teach us is by reading books. Not having books in our society is almost like not having food. It is an essential quality that us humans must have. Similarly. Montag's society almost resembles our current world. Books have been ignored by many people of our generation and nobody has done anything about it. However unlike Montag's society, people of our generation haven’t outlawed reading. They still read books, and it creates a perfect chance to put an end to the extinction of…
book, magazine, newspaper or online. If you carry a poem in your wallet and you look at it once a year, we count you. If you have just finished Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks in German for the third time, or you’ve read one page of a Harlequin Romance and given up because it’s too hard, we count you as equals. We are very egalitarian! What you see for the first time in American history is that less than half of the U.S. adult American population is reading literature. I’m going to talk about what the causes of the problem are, and then I’ll talk about the consequences and the solutions. To go into the data a little big further, we see that we’re producing the first generation of educated people, in some cases college graduates, who no longer become lifelong readers. This is disturbing for reasons above and…
Reading “The Joy of reading and Writing: Superman and Me,” gave me a different perspective of reading and writing. Sherman Alexie, who grew up on the Spokane Reservation in Wellpinit, Washington, explains his life as an Indian boy, and how reading and writing helped his life to succeed. Alexie purposes is to discuss how he first learned how to read and write, his intelligence as a young Indian boy, and Alexie as an adult teaching creative writing to Indians children. Alexie learned not only how to read but to love reading. He used his love of reading to propel himself through the school system, removing himself from the stereotypical to be dumb, quiet, poor, and to fail in life.…