Malcom's Learning To Read

He now knew what empowered them and what he needed to become empowered, and he states that "The argument which he so warmly urged, against my learning to read, only served to inspire me with a desire and determination to learn" (48). He prized this lesson and took advantage of it. Frederick Douglass now set a goal for himself to learn how to read at any cost.

He was realizing how before he had been taught to read he too blind to the injustice that the slave owners put them under. Hugh Auld teaches Douglass why it is so important that a slave must remain ignorant, because if they didn’t understand the oppression that they were under they would feel no need to rebel against the slave owners. Douglass realizes this and thinks to himself. “Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read … might rely with the utmost confidence on the results which, he said, would flow from teaching me to read” (20) Because he realizes the importance of education Douglass is set on finishing learning to read and write. Despite the struggles he knows he will have to go through to gain his education because to educate a slave is illegal, he believes that it is through becoming literate that he will be able to escape slavery and become a freeman. Douglass demonstrates the importance of his education through being dedicated to teaching himself how to read and write. He discovers the power of education, through Mr. Auld being so dedicated to prohibiting Douglass to read he is enabled to comprehend the power of education especially in its ability to keep millions of people enslaved.

When students learn about subjects they are familiar with, it allows the content area being taught to become meaningful. As mentioned in Chapter 6, on page 149, motivation to read can come because they are interested in the content. When students are interested in the content they are reading, their needs are being met, and they will be well prepared for a successful literacy experience.

Malcom X's "A Homemade Education" tells a story of how he gained knowledge by himself and how it guided his thoughts and ideas. Reading also molded his political views. Although Malcom X is a very outspoken person about racism in America, and throughout the world, I find that he has a right to be angry, but goes a little overboard on blaming whites.

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

Malcom X once said, “Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” This quotation means that education is an important thing, and we should prepare for our future. Fredrick Douglass and Malcom X are two different men who write similar aspects. Fredrick Douglass is a slave, and Malcom X is a criminal, both were deprived of obtaining a higher sense of education. They are two activists who grew up to realize the importance of an education, in reading and writing. In Frederick Douglas’s essay “Learning to Read and Write” and Malcolm’s “Learning to Read” one can compare and contrast the analysis both essays.

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.

What would you do if you could not read? What problems do you think you would come across? After reading Malcolm X’s “Learning to Read” and Sherman Alexie’s piece, “Superman and Me”, these are a few questions that a reader might ask themselves. Sherman Alexie and Malcolm X are both great writers. This was not always the case though. Malcolm X and Sherman Alexie taught themselves how to read. Alexie at a young age Malcolm X, as a young adult. After they learned to read and write they wrote for many reasons and about many topics. When reading these two essays, you can see that there are many things that are significantly the same as well as having some differences all throughout the text. These similarities and differences include the pathos in both essays, and the ethos that Alexie has that Malcolm does not have pertaining to the subject of their papers. In Malcolm X’s “Learning to Read” and Sherman Alexie’s “Superman and Me” they are both trying to persuade the reader that something needs to be done and why.

Throughout Malcolm X's "Learning to Read" his tone and attitude frequently changes. Although the emotions are faintly projected, his tone and attitude are caused by a change in his own emotions, which correspond with the beginning, middle, and end of the passage. The essay not only expounds his lack of reading skills while young, it expounds upon the importance of reading to him today. If a thorough assessment is made, he exclaims that reading is important to readers' lives as it was to his, aiding to shape ones morals and principles. Without the ability to read, a basis for intellect and perception, it becomes increasingly difficult to build your own ethical views.

Before one ever starts attending school, their very first lesson is to become literate in the language they speak. From reading sentences to reading paragraphs to reading novels, we try to achieve literacy. However, some of the greatest public speakers and writers did not achieve it through the way most people did. This is shown in the literary works of Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X, and Sherman Alexie. Like these people, literacy isn’t achieved by simply going to school. It’s achieved through great perseverance and through great tenacity.

Once both became literate, it had an immediate impact on their lives. Both discuss the importance it had on every aspect of their being. In Fredrick Douglass’ “Learning to Read,” Douglass states, “The reading of these documents enabled me to utter my thoughts, and to meet the arguments brought forward to sustain slavery; but while they relieved me of one difficulty, they brought on another even more painful than the one of which I was relieved. The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers” (128) which proves the reality Douglass faced when he learned of the oppression his people were facing. Learning to read and write helped him understand slavery, abolition, and oppression therefore pushing him to want to gain knowledge, become educated, and fight for his civil rights. Literacy is ultimately is what helped Douglass escape slavery. Once he escaped, Douglass was able to communicate with the world, through his writing, to spread the truth in order to affect public opinion about the oppression at hand. In Malcolm X’s “A Homemade Education,” he also makes it clear that reading and writing made a significant impact on his life. He states “My homemade education gave me, with every additional book that I read, a little bit more sensitivity to the

     Although Douglass’ desire to develop the mind was strong, he didn’t always have it. It wasn’t until Mr. Auld had chastised Mrs. Auld for teaching him the alphabets that he really felt the aspiration to read. Douglass said, “That which to him was a great evil, to be carefully

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.

Education is something that is often taken for granted in this day and age. Kids these days rebel against going to school all together. In the essays “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie and “Learning to Read and Write” by Frederick Douglass, we learn of two young men eager for knowledge. Both men being minors and growing up in a time many years apart, felt like taking how to read and write into their own hands, and did so with passion. On the road to a education, both Alexie and Douglass discover that education is not only pleasurable, but also painful. Alexie and Douglass both grew up in different times, in different environments, and in different worlds. They both faced different struggles and had different achievements, but they were not all that different. Even though they grew up in different times they both had the same views on how important of education was. They both saw education as freedom and as a way of self-worth even though they achieved their education in different ways. They both had a strong mind and a strong of sense of self-motivation.

“Knowledge and beliefs about reading and learning to read are wedded in ways that influence almost every aspect of a teacher’s instructional decisions and practices” (Vacca