“What High School Is” by Theodore Sizer and “Learning to Read” by Malcolm X

Malcolm X uses symbolism and pathos to connect to his audience and demonstrate the importance of education for self-improvement. After his father was killed by the white supremacist organization Black Legion, which caused his mother to suffer an emotional breakdown, Malcom X and his siblings were forced into foster homes and orphanages (Malcolm X). This forced Malcolm X to live a life of crime as a means to survive; by 1946 Malcolm was sentenced to ten years in prison for burglary (Malcolm X). Prison is where Malcolm X life changed for the better, hence the purpose for him to write “Prison Studies”.

Convicted of robbery in 1946, Malcolm Little received a 10 year sentence in Charlestown prison, a sentence that would change the landscape of civil rights forever. 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.

Ever thought about Malcolm’s reasons for writing this Autobiography? Throughout the text Malcolm experiences many things that many young teenagers would not be able to experience or even understand. Even though in this day and age teens try to accomplish most of the things Malcolm X might have accomplished within a day, there still would never be a hustler like him. Growing up Malcolm experienced many changes with his family and the people around him. In the text Malcolm jumped from being a loner to a very popular young man in the streets around Boston. Malcolm was the type of person that wanted to know all he could to make sure he was good at what he was doing. He wanted to fit in but yet still be himself at the same time. Malcolm quickly

He soon could pick up any book and understand what the book was saying. Malcolm X would read most of the hours in a day. He also mentions that he’d often forget he was imprisoned. “I never had been so truly free in my life.” “I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life.”

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

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

In the beginning he speaks of his time in prison and how he learned to read. What he states in the beginning reflects his point of view to the reader. By stating that he's an inmate learning to read, readers gain the impression that at that point in the essay, rather than being Malcolm X, he's just your average inmate trying to finding his place in the world. During the middle, his point of view is still that of an inmate, but with additional knowledge aiding him in shaping his morals and values. In this section by Malcolm X stating that "an inmate was smiled upon if he demonstrated an unusually intense interest in books," and "I was lucky enough to reason also that I should improve my penmanship" the reader ascertains that he is making his transition from being your average inmate with no morals, to the learned activist Malcolm X. In the end, he instills upon the reader that he has obtained morals and become Malcolm X. In the two quotes "if I weren't out battling the white man," and "the worlds' white man indeed acted like devils", the reader finds out that through his reading, Malcolm X has obtained morals and by gaining such morals he has gained a purpose; the role of the civil rights activist. By putting his points of view in this specific order, the reader is given a chance to interpret his transformation from prison inmate to civil

In his autobiography, he writes about his time in prison and his frustration in not being able to communicate properly to Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm X started copying words from the dictionary and everything on the page down to the punctuation and began reading books on history, philosophy, and religion. He writes, “I copied into my tablet everything printed on that first page, down to the punctuation marks. . . As my word-base broadened, I could for the first time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand what the book was saying.”

The Autobiography of Malcolm X, written by Malcolm X himself and Alex Haley, concentrates on Malcolm X’s unapologetic and autodidactism. Although his approach to education was unorthodox, once Malcolm X started to read he could not stop. His thirst for education became unquenchable. During his time in prison he managed to self-educate about the religion of Islam and identify his true self. Living in America where black kids are discouraged and laughed at for trying to pursue a professional career, Malcolm X dropped out of high school because the education system failed him. His teacher told him that a person of his kind was not suitable for a sophisticated sifficticated role as a lawyer, instead a good carpenter was more reasonable. What that

Not at all like Douglas with no educational basis at all, Malcolm then again had gotten a training that of an eighth grader however time passed and soon did he overlook his lessons. He could figure out how to read yet couldn't pass on his words onto paper. In jail, he had time, time to restore his training and strengthen it. He started to compose, beginning with the dictionary he started adapting word for word, page for page, area by segment beginning with the An's and completing with the Z's. In his entry, Malcolm gives an announcement to set up a thought of what sort of training he persisted, "Between what I wrote in my tablet, and composing letters, amid whatever is left of my time in jail I would figure I composed a million words."

Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass were two very important men in America’s history. As educated black men, they defied the idea of uneducated blacks. Their prowess with language allowed them to communicate their movements’ message to the masses easily and effectively, letting them have an active role in society. Douglass wrote his autobiography, which was a bestseller, and exposed to antebellum America the true harshness of slavery. Malcolm X became an important figure in the fight for civil rights one hundred years later, giving speeches across the country. For both men, education became a process of enlightenment. It made them eager to learn more and more. However, this process had some differences. The most glaring difference is the way they learned; Malcolm X taught himself to read and write while Douglass’s mistress taught him first, and later by smaller children in the area. Besides that, the end result was vastly different for Malcolm X compared to Douglass, as he read much more diverse content than Douglass did. Thus, Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X shared both similarities and differences in learning to read and write.

Although both Richard Rodriguez and Malcolm X’s lives were profoundly impacted by becoming educated, how they acquired their education and the consequences of becoming educated were different for each author. The path that Richard Rodriguez took in his quest

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.

Through his readings and new found religion, the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X finds self-pride. He starts to become proud of who he is and where he came from. He realizes that before, all he was trying to do was act like someone he wasn’t and all it had gotten him was seven years in prison. The letters he got from Elijah Muhammad and his family encouraged all of this. He strives to admit his guilt, and “implore the forgiveness of God” (170). He would often “be startled to catch [himself] thinking in a remote way of [his] earlier self as another person” and marvel at how much he had changed (170). All the reading he did “awoke … some long dormant craving to be mentally alive” (179). His trip to prison opened up new doors for him because he gained knowledge that made him rethink his niche in life.

Education is one of the most essential necessities of a personal life because without education, we would not have a brighter future. In two essays “Learning to Read and Write” and “A Homemade Education”, Malcolm and Douglass describe what they have gone through in order to become more successful in their pursuits in life. While Malcolm X lived part of his life in prison, he spent his time writing numerous definitions from a dictionary amongst the walls and tables. The elements of the dictionary motivated him to not only become a free man, but a well educated one at that. Douglass, who also taught himself, began his life in slavery. But after a series of attempts, he escapes from slavery and pursues into his