Rhetorical Analysis Of Superman And Me By Sherman Alexie

“There’s a distinction between an education and school. Education is what Native people have been doing for their children since the beginning of time. School has been what has been imposed on people from outside” (Garland). This thought from Garland’s article “In remote Alaskan villages, teachers struggle to make school meaningful,” eloquently lays out how many Alaska natives regard the operation of collecting knowledge. Remarkably, Garland’s notion also offers great insight as to why the U.S. education system seems to fail Alaska natives altogether. It is this “distinction” (Garland), between education and school that seems to actively disconnect the ancestral cultural values of Alaska natives from the mainstream education system in this country. An impression of this broken connection appears in Kleinfeld’s The Teacher who Came to Rivertown. Here, Bob Perthall and his family move to Rivertown, Alaska, a remote village of 75 people. Accepting the position of teacher/principal, Perthall’s good intentions collide with subsistence, alcoholism, hardship, long-held customs and personal crisis. At schools end, the people of Rivertown finds no surprise in Perthall’s ending defeat. However, what really concerns us about the “teaching case,” is Perthall’s lack of preparedness for the students and culture of Rivertown, ultimately continuing the cycle of an ineffective school.

The article “Where I find my Heroes” by Oliver Stone, he shows imagery and personal pronouns to portrait his view on a hero. Stone uses imagery as a way to convey his definition of a hero. In the article it states “Who is heroic? Scientists who spend years of their lives trying to find cures for diseases. The teenager who says no to crack. The inner-city kid who works at McDonald’s instead of selling drugs.” By looking at this quote it highlights all of the reasons just an ordinary person is a hero oppose to someone famous. Everyday people such as teenagers who are doing good and the right thing and how the reader can too. Furthermore, the author uses personal pronouns as a strategy to portrait a hero. According to Stone “But as I’ve gotten

Adjusting to another culture is a difficult concept, especially for children in their school classrooms. In Sherman Alexie’s, “Indian Education,” he discusses the different stages of a Native Americans childhood compared to his white counterparts. He is describing the schooling of a child, Victor, in an American Indian reservation, grade by grade. He uses a few different examples of satire and irony, in which could be viewed in completely different ways, expressing different feelings to the reader. Racism and bullying are both present throughout this essay between Indians and Americans. The Indian Americans have the stereotype of being unsuccessful and always being those that are left behind. Through Alexie’s negativity and humor in his

Sherman Alexie recalls his childhood memory of learning to read, and his teaching experience in “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me”. He devotes his interest to reading. By this way, he breaks the stereotype that Indian boys are expected to be stupid and dumb, and later on he becomes a successful writer because of his endeavor to read. Alexie vividly narrates his younger life by using metaphor and repetition with a confident tone, in order to strengthen his description of his reading talent, his influence to the other Indian boys and how he struggles in poverty to change his life.

In Sherman Alexie’s “Superman and Me,” he uses rhetorical strategies to achieve his purpose of reaching his audience. He uses analogies to depict something confusing with something simple to understand. Syntax gives the readers an idea of Alexie when he was first learning to read. Finally, his emphasis on anaphora allows the audience to see his relentlessness to keep reading. The use of analogy, syntax, and anaphora persuades his audience to agree with Alexie’s purpose of this essay.

In “Indian Education”, an essay written by Sherman Alexie about his experiences in school from first grade to twelfth grade, Alexie uses a wide variety of language and rhetorical devices to tell his story. For example, he often adds anecdotes to make

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.

Education —an institution for success, opportunity, and progress — is itself steeped in racism. In Sherman Alexie’s short story “Indian Education” from his book The Longer Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is set in two places, the Spokane Indian Reservation and a farm town nearby the reservation. The story is written in a list of formative events chronologize Victor’s youth by depicting the most potent moment from each year he is in school. Alexie addresses the issue of racism in education by examining examples of injustice and discrimination over twelve years in a boy’s life. Victor faces his initial injustice in first grade when he is bullied by bigger kids, but his understanding of injustice becomes much more complex in grades two through twelve as he experiences discrimination against his American Indian identity. Familial experiences of a Native woman, Alexie’s style and humor, and Victor’s awareness of discrimination from grade one to twelve all reveal the grim reality of growing up and being schooled on an American Indian reservation.

The article “Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie is an informative article about the author growing up on an Indian reservation, attending reservation school and where he is today. The author's underlying message in the article is cultural differences when not accepted can cause issues not only socially but also in education. The author does a great job in persuading his readers of the issues on education in reservation schools and possibly how to fix these issues.

Throughout literature many pieces of work can be compared and contrasted to each other. In “Superman and Me,” Sherman Alexie discusses the challenges he faced as a young Indian adult, who found his passion of reading at an early age, living on the Spokane Indian Reservation. He challenged the stereotype of the young Indian students who were thought to be uneducated while living on a reservation. Likewise, in the excerpt from The Hunger of Memory, Richard Rodriguez shares his similar experience of being a minority and trying to break stereotypes of appearing uneducated. He shares the details of his life growing up learning a different culture and the struggles he faced becoming assimilated into American culture. In these two specific pieces of literature discuss the importance of breaking stereotypes of social and educational American standards and have similar occupational goals; on the other hand the two authors share their different family relationships.

In contrast, “Superman and Me “ by Sherman Alexie tells the story of Alexie, as a young Indian boy, fighting his way through life. Alexie’s autobiography tells a story of how tough life can be as a Spokane Indian boy. He lived in Eastern Washington State on the Spokane Indian Reservation, this is where he and his brother and sisters resided. Alexie stated that, “ We lived on a combination of irregular paychecks, hope, fear, and government surplus foods”(Alexie 1). Poor, below the poverty point, but managed to find a job here and there making them middle-class. With the money Alexie’s father makes he provided them with their every needs. Additionally his father buys books because he is an

In “The Joy of Reading and Writing : Superman and Me” published in the Los Angeles Times, Sherman Alexie brings attention to the cultural divide between Indians and non - Indians, specifically in the area of education. Alexie uses himself as the example in the article, a “Spokane Indian boy” who lives on the reservation. Alexie chose to mimic his father's love for books, because of that he taught himself to read at a very young age. He learned to read by looking at the pictures in a Superman comic book. After teaching himself he “advances quickly”, unlike other kids he is able to read “Grapes of Wrath in kindergarten”. If he hadn’t been an Indian boy he may have been called a “prodigy” but he was so instead he was an “oddity”. At this point in the article Alexie brings us out of his past as a child and into his present as an educated Indian man. Much to his surprise he has become a writer. He says, “I visit schools and teach creative writing to Indian kids”. Alexie talks about how Indian children have lower

In his stories Sherman Alexie’s humor, portays a role that helps bring people together,Alexie 's sophisticated use of humor unsettles conventional ways of thinking and helps brain growth, which allows Indian characters to connect to their heritage in ways and forces non-Indian readers to reconsider their ideas on them.

In his essay, “Superman and Me,” Sherman Alexie explains how books allowed him to escape the societal expectations for Native Americans. Alexie was raised on a Spokane tribe reservation in Washington state. He portrays his childhood at the reservation as revolving around literature. He then describes how his father piled literature in every room of his house, from Western action novels to comics to books about the Vietnam War. Alexie claims that a Superman comic allowed him to teach himself how to read, by looking at the drawings, dialogue, and the script and making assumptions. As a result of learning to read at the age of three, he advanced quickly in school. Alexie then compares his advancement with a non-Indian child’s, explaining how he received little recognition due to his race and society’s expectation for Native American children. He believes that he was too smart, too arrogant, and too determined to fail. In order to save his future, Alexie read anything from cereal boxes to auto repair manuals. He also stayed up late into the night reading books to gain additional knowledge. As a result of all of this reading, dedication, and perseverance, Alexie was able to go to college. Earning a college degree prepared him for his future career: a successful writer. He writes novels, short stories and poems. Along with writing, he visits many Native American schools. At the schools, he interacts with students and encourages them to read and write. He also notices that the

Sherman J. Alexie Jr. wrote the short story “Superman and Me” in 1998. It’s a story about how and when he learned how to read. More so, it’s a story about how reading would fundamentally change his life, and how he intends to change the lives of others by showing them the power of reading. Mr. Alexie “was born on October 7, 1966 in Wellpint, Washington (Spokane Indian Reservation)” (Donovan & Lewis, 2011, p. 20). It may have been a different time when he was growing up, but a lot of the points he makes about growing up then, still hit home today. He points out that growing up as an Indian, on an Indian reservation, that he was subjugated to a life that was destined for a miniscule existence. He states, “A smart Indian is a dangerous person, widely feared and ridiculed by Indians and non-Indians alike” (1998, p. 2). He wouldn’t let the fear that was widespread amongst his community that they were supposed to be, in a sense, dumbed down, stop him from achieving greatness. The purpose of his short story is to show how his perseverance into gaining knowledge allowed him to escape that menial life he was so called destined for, and how he intends to show others that through their own hard work, they too, can achieve something great.