The Article ' Literacy Behind Bars ' By Malcolm X

Frederick Douglass was very fortunate to have learned how to read. In his time if you were a slave and had no education you couldn’t escape to freedom. Frederick Douglass’s key to education was his mistress (155). At first she was very nice and was giving him the education he needed and wanted but then from the influence of her husband she became rotten and denied him the right to his education “My mistress, who had kindly commenced to instruct me, had in compliance with the advice and direction of her husband no, not only ceased to instruct, but had set her face against my being instructed by anyone else” (155). But then he was fortunate enough to get some boys around where he lived to continue teaching him “The plan which I adopted, and the one by which I was most successful, was that of making friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the street. As many of these I could I could, I converted into teachers,

Frederick Douglass was born a slave in 1818 and grew up in Master Hugh’s family for just about seven years. After learning to read and write, he escaped slavery and became a leader in the abolitionist movement. Growing up he was segregated from reading and writing and instead of receiving an education, Douglas fulfilled the duties of his slave master. Malcolm X, born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1925, was imprisoned at the age of 21 and sentenced to 10 years for burglary, however, he was granted parole after serving seven years. While imprisoned, Malcolm Little taught himself how to read and write by surrounding himself with a paper, pencil, and a dictionary. After years of constant reading and writing,

Knowing how powerful reading was, Frederick Douglass decided to take reading into his own hands. He had to acquire new ways to educate himself to read and write. Frederick Douglass immediately realized that all of the white boys on the street knew how to read and write and he soon converted them into his new teachers. He began taking bread from the house and, in trade, received valuable reading lessons from the poor white boy's on the street. Through these lessons, Frederick Douglass could now read. Learning to read gave Frederick Douglass the self confidence he needed to write. He believed that if he could write, he may be able to, one day, write his own pass. Frederick Douglass began learning the letters marked

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

In Coming to an Awareness of Language, the learning process that the author goes through can be compared to that of our own. Malcolm X put effort into every part of his learning experience. He struggles working on his penmanship, and is excited by learning word that he didn’t know existed like aardvark. Here the reader feels a connection to Malcolm X’s excitement and pain in his process of learning and writing new words to their own experiences learning. “I never realized so many words existed! ...In my slow, painstaking, ragged handwriting, I copied into my

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.

Fredrick Douglass was a slave, who secretly learned how to read and write in many different forms such as his mistress and pieced together the elements of literacy through outside sources such as old books, and writing tools from young children. Unlike Malcom X, he received an education although it was limited, and went to prison where he accessed books from the library. Malcom X stated in his essay Learning to Read, “An inmate was smiled upon if he demonstrated an unusually intense interest in books.” Meaning reading was not allowed for slaves. Unlike Douglass situation, if he would have shown interest in a book he would have been punished for it. Being a slave Douglass had to keep his development in reading and writing hidden while Malcolm insisted on writing letters to Elijah Muhammad with his new acquired vocabulary. This proved that Malcolm’s education was easier to gain unlike Fredrick Douglass, through slavery reading and writing was much

Literacy plays an important part in helping Douglass achieve his freedom. Learning to read and write enlightened his mind to the injustice of slavery; it kindled in his heart longings for liberty. Douglass’s skills proved instrumental in his attempts of escape and afterwards in his mission as a spokesman against slavery.

When Malcolm X refers to freedom in the final sentence, he is referring to being at liberty. He is saying that he is no longer constrained by his lack of education and his inability to read. Malcolm X carefully studied the dictionary to solve the problem of his own illiteracy. Having risen from a world of thieving, pimping, and drug pushing to become one of the most articulate African Americans. What an enormous frustration he must have felt writing numerous letters that fell on deaf ears. Knowing that he had something to say but not being able to convey it in letters. According to a study conducted by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute of Literacy, thirty-two million adults in the U.S. cannot read. That is fourteen percent of the Population. These numbers are astonishing! Furthermore, nineteen percent of high school graduates cannot read. There are many benefits that come with being able to read and write. Some of these include economic security, access to health care, and the ability to actively participate in public life. Malcolm X went behind bars partially because of negative educational opportunities. He ends up finding freedom when he learns of the connections between culture and education that society has denied him. He did this by copying and studying the pages of the dictionary, page by page. He would also stay up at night reading, and was careful to make sure that the guards at the prison did

In Malcom X’s “Literacy Behind Bars”, Malcom shares his journey of self-educating himself while behind bars in the Charlestown Prison. Malcom attempted to read books, but never succeeded because he struggled to understand the meaning of the words on the page in front of him. He claims that prison allowed him to study more than he would have if he had attended college. Although Malcom struggled on an intellectual level, he serves as a prime example of an individual with self-belief and self-determination which lead to great success. Personally, I can relate to Malcom X in the sense that my personal experiences with education have allowed me not only to believe in myself but also have a mindset that allows me to come to certain realizations not only about myself but also about the world around me.

2. How did Douglass learn his alphabet and how did he learn to read and write?

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.

In “My Time in Prison”, Malcolm Little states how he learned and expanded his knowledge while he was in the prison by dictionary and books, and how these affected his life. According to the author, when he was in the Charlestown Prison, he was not able to fully understand the book he read since he did not know the most of the words. Hence, he requested a dictionary, some tablets and pencils. Then he began to copy every page of the dictionary and read them aloud. This led him to be able to comprehend the books he read and got addicted to reading. He spent most of his time reading in his bunk or library, even at night, depending on the glow of the corridor light. In consonance with the author, books had opened his eyes to new side of the world

In “Saved”, Malcom X describes his self-education while he was in prison. The author explains how he struggled with several words while reading. He decided that self-teaching himself through the process of re-writing the dictionary would be in his best interest. Malcom X stated that through the use of the dictionary, he had felt a sense of passion and fulfillment which generated an interest in his culture. Opening this door to reading gave him a better education and understanding of the world he lived in. Lastly, Malcom X said his experience of self-education was more valuable than a college experience because there were fewer distractions while located in a prison a cell. On the other hand, Marc Edmundson, author of “ON THE

Some people like to learn in their own pace, within the environment they choose to study in. Malcolm X was self-taught, he was dedicated to learning how to read and master it, regardless of his setting at the time which was in prison: “And as soon as the guard passed, I got back out of bed onto the floor area of the light-glow, where I would read for another fifty-eight minutes- until the guard approached again. That went on until three or four every morning. Three or four hours of sleep a night was enough for me” (X 41). Malcolm’s environment was completely different than a regular student studying in a classroom, he had more free time to learn and although he only had a couple of hours of sleep, he kept going. He had a voice and knew that him being illiterate would cease his ability to become great, and he quickly applied his new knowledge of what was in books onto the real world giving him a larger voice.