Malcom X By Malcolm X

In his essay, Malcolm X writes about how learning to read and write opened his eyes to the oppression that surrounded him and the world. Malcolm is a black man that was put in prison when he noticed that he felt uncomfortable when he did not understand anything that he read and that he could not write correctly. His incapacity to read and write was what inspired him to request a dictionary, something to write on and a pencil. That initiative changed his life forever. He copied down the whole dictionary, which helped him to learn words and their meanings. “ With

Literacy is power. Being taught to read and write is important to function in society. You learn to read and write to express your feelings and communicate with others. Frederick Douglass and Malcom X both succeeded in learning how to read and write, but in different ways. The education of Malcolm X was learned more formally. Frederick Douglass learned from his surroundings and the people around him. Malcom and Frederick battled in reading and writing, but learned in similar and different ways.

Can reading really be influential? Do you believe that reading can change lives? Malcolm X, one of the most influential man of his time thought so. One day he was able to turn his life around by just picking up a book and learning how to read. Whether it was in a jail cell or in a library he was reading wherever he went. In Malcolm X’s essay “Literacy Behind Bars” he writes about the topic of how reading changed his life. Throughout his life in prison, Malcolm X shares his experience of how learning how to read had changed his life forever. This essay shows how the ability to read and write opens new pathways into your imagination that you may not be able to experience if you lacked the ability to do so. Learning how to become literate did not come easy back then especially since he was African American. During his life in prison he realized that you do not need a college education to be successful; you just need to know how to read and write. The way Malcolm structured his essay helped improve his ethos much like other things did. Malcolm X’s encouraging tone was evident throughout the essay. He writes his essay with such a tone, because he is explaining his personal struggle of learning how to read and how it paid such dividends in his life after prison. By using this type of tone he appeals to people’s emotions through the use of logos, which in result helps build his ethos. As well as his tone he also uses different rhetorical devices to keep the reader engaged. The use of irony throughout the essay in appealing to the reader because it keeps them interested in the essay that they are reading. Similarly, his use of opposition within the essay makes the reader think about what they are reading. People may need to reread a sentence or two because how the opposition is used in the essay, which keeps them focused and aware of what they are reading. By utilizing several rhetorical devices, including pathos, opposition, and ethos, that being said, Malcolm X conveys the message of how reading changed his life.

In Malcolm X’s “Learning to Read”, we learn the story of how Malcolm turned his how life around while serving a sentence he earned from a robbery in 1964, which lead him to spend seven years in jail. During this time, Malcolm discovered the power that reading and self educating himself brought to his consciousness. Who would have known that this man’s entire life would of changed and transformed him into one of the biggest political figures of our time. He himself probably never would've guessed that this would of been his fate while he was in prison serving time for a crime he committed before his enlightenment. A negative choice he made which ultimately altered the path he was destined to go down, Malcolm X is the prime example of how change is possible for anyone as long as you start within yourself.

Generally, every individual’s learning experience has its own inspiring and meaningful stories; a learning experience that has its own unique distinctions, interpretations, complications, sacrifices, has its endless possibilities, and most importantly, a learning experience that has its own effective action and optimistic option for execution. For example: In “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me,” Sherman Alexie highlights his enjoyment of reading and writing. He claims that as a kid, he reminds himself that he is a “smart Indian boy” even though it is not recognized on a reservation or even when non-Indian teachers believe that Indian children are stupid. Similarly, in “Learning to Read and Write,” Frederick Douglass demonstrates that slaves are entitled to have the same rights to learn about reading and writing as any other Americans. He testifies that his masters, including his fellow slaves believe that slavery and education were not compatible. Moreover, in “On Keeping a Notebook,” Joan Didion stereotypes herself by constantly questioning her own writing due to her lack of confidence as a writer. She conveys that eventually, she masters writing through examining her own writing on a piece of a notebook about herself and other people. Likewise, in “Learning to Read,” Malcolm X expresses that books are his “Alma Mater” because he becomes proficient in writing in a course of copying every single word in a dictionary. He clarifies that he develops his skills in

In the excerpt “Learning to Read” from his 1965 Autobiography, Malcolm X argues that he had more opportunity to learn about the world and specifically black history in prison than he would have received in a formal education setting. He describes the process in which he essentially taught himself how to read and write, and how it lead to an awakening of his desire to learn everything he could through voracious reading. X illustrates to the reader the painful histories that he read about and the powerful knowledge which he gained to show that one needs little more than access to a book collection and the motivation to learn in order to become educated. This reading resonated with me as a learner whose love for independent learning often takes a backseat to the demands of academia and provides a key concept which I plan to instill in my students as a future teacher.

As Douglass continued to go from master to master he eventually began to be taught english by Mrs. Auld, but after hearing of this his master, Mr. Auld, says, " if you teach a nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would be forever unfit for him to be a slave”(Douglass 20). Malcolm X also understands that this was a way to combat racism. This is known as he describes his experience while in prison and says, “ I saw that the best thing could do was get hold of a dictionary-to study, to learn some words”(Haley/X 172). Malcolm X came to this conclusion after realizing that his literary skills were lacking and that if he wanted to convey his feeling of resistance that he would have increase his knowledge, Douglass in a similar way, after hearing his master utter those words, felt that he then understood the pathway to

“Learning to Read”: Rhetorical Strategies Critique “Learning to Read” is a compelling excerpt from The Autobiography of Malcolm X, where Malcolm X conveys his experiences through nostalgic storytelling about how he went from being an uneducated prisoner to an articulate national leader, a section meant to inspire the reader. He explains how he had accomplished this by excessive reading and persistently educating himself in prison. He did this by studying the dictionary, for example. By the same token, he distinctly credits his empowerment to reading - particularly books about historical racial injustices such as slavery. He explains how this had awoken his dormant passion to fight against black adversity, an issue that he deeply connected

Although he was a prisoner he wanted to be able to write in a way that touch his readers , malcolm had a way to talk to people face to face but it came to writing he wasn't as successful . He realized that his only solution to his problem was to practice reading . After that he learn how to write and used words to help others relate to him. When he did this he was able to escape his mental prison. He blown and dedicated his life to spread the ideas of Mohamed ally as well as his own ideas. Malcolm also used writing to help him write speeches to free the african americans from slavery . “ when you are expected to do something don’t only do it but go above and

Although Malcolm X’s repetition does a splendid job of conveying his message, the strongest tools in his arsenal are his anecdotes, or short stories. Because the text is a narrative, it tells mostly of real events in his life. He tells this narrative through anecdotes about his time in prison reading countless books and texts. For example, he recounts the time that he read the dictionary, reciting countless volumes of words just to learn new things (162). This demonstrates that all of these event that he mentions happen to him and were true. When Malcolm X uses this anecdote he is saying that a simple dictionary furthered a man that would become one of the most prominent civil rights activists. This further proves his point that learning to read is the most important and influential ability

Malcolm X’s determination to obtain knowledge from any source is what makes him distinctively unique from other civil right leaders. While in the confines of his prison cell, he started his intellectual journey from a dictionary. He copied and memorized every word he wrote and was fascinated by how much information he absorbed. This opened his mind to the world around him and brought him into the frontlines to fight for freedom and equality.

In 1946 Malcolm Little was convicted of robbery and received a 10 year sentence in Charlestown prison. Here he taught himself how to read and write, using materials provided by the prison’s library to aid in his education; consequently, he also learned about the racial injustices throughout history. After 7 years, Malcolm X was granted parole and released from prison and joined the Civil Rights Movement under the name Malcolm X. In a section of his autobiography Malcolm X argues the importance of critical thinking in educational and research purposes. Critical thinking allows the reader to gauge whether the information gained from a particular source can be accepted as fact, depending on how it fits into the information given by other sources. He uses his experiences, the texts that he used in his education, pathos arguments, and metaphor to further his point.

Although Frederick Douglas and Malcolm X are two different men from two different centuries, it is their writing that relates them. Douglas, a slave, and Malcolm, a criminal, both were deprived of obtaining a higher sense of education. It was the call to learn that separated them from the norm, and the education they gained that shaped their image. The two activists grew up to realize the importance of education, in particular reading and writing, in reality, the basis of establishing an education. Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X describes how they learned to read and write and the challenges they had to address in their condition of being a slave and criminal since childhood. His enslavers did not want him to get an education or to learn anything that could make him someone valuable because for them, slavery and education were not compatible. Although all the obstacles that his enslavers put to him were not easy, he did not stop his aspiration to learn to read and write to become a person of character; he looked for other ways to learn to read and write since his enslavers did not allow that. He tries to enlighten that education and freedom are rights that every human being should have; education gives them the opportunity to identify ourselves to see who we are. In the case of Douglass, he was trying to identify himself as a slave compared to the other children who were not going to be slaves for life. Frederick Douglas’s chapter “Learning to Read and Write” and

Malcolm X’s autobiography serves as a great example for the importance in language and how it greatly it defines our roles in society. After dropping out of school and taking

When some people do not have the same familiarity with English through education, they take it as a challenge and find the motivation to master it. Malcolm X had some understanding of reading, but never had a full understanding of what he read like his inmate Bambi. Therefore, he took it as a way to motivate himself to gain a greater understanding of reading through studying the encyclopedia and dictionary in the prison library. On the other hand, Douglass did not have the education to start with as Malcolm X. He learned the basics of reading through his mistress, and from then on he made it his journey to achieve and master the reading and writing skill. He managed to gain the knowledge of reading and writing through other people. Once his mistress stopped teaching him how to read he would manage to grab bread and give it to the poor white children in exchange for reading. "...I wished to learn how to write, as I might have occasion to write my own personal pass. I consoled myself with the hope that I should one day find a good chance. Meanwhile, I