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My journey to literacy
My literacy journey essay
My literacy journey essay
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The story “Learning to Read” by Malcom X is very inspirational. When Malcolm was a street hustler, he became incarcerated it was there he came to the realization that he could barely articulate proper sentences. It was in jail that Malcom got his thirst for knowledge. He ultimately ends up reading an entire dictionary, just to learn new words and practice his penmanship. Without knowing this, it would have been hard to believe that the Malcolm X that fought for equality, actually educated himself in prison. He felt prison was the best thing that could of ever happened to him. He wouldn’t be the man he is today without it. It proves how important reading and writing are in order to be successful.
While in jail an inmate Bimbi took over all
... or would come in contact with. He’s a proven fact that you can make it, even through the roughness situations, like him being in prison for seven years. He talks and says, “I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading opened to me;” “I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life;” “As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive,” (p.217). With that being said I will end this paper with one more quote from this brilliant African American Man, “My homemade education gave me, with every additional book that I read, a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness, and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America,” (p.217). His teachings shall be something that every African American carry with them throughout educational and everyday life.
As I grew up learning to read was something I learned in school, yet for Sherman Alexie and Malcolm X can’t say the same. These two amazing authors taught themselves, at different stages of their lives, to read. In Sherman Alexie’s essay “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” and Malcolm X’s essay “Learning to Read” they both explain the trials and experiences they went through that encouraged them to work to achieve literacy.
In “Literacy behind Bars” narrative from an autobiography by Malcolm X in 1965, Malcolm X shows that being able to read is important and sometimes jail is the best place to learn. The author supports this by showing that he saw the people around him reading and wanted to be able to speak and read as well as them (640). He started out by reading and writing an entire dictionary which helped him read and understand more words (641). Malcolm X read everything that he could get his hands on and was able to learn more and use it later on in his career. He was able to concentrate more about learning in jail then he would have been able to do at a college because he had nothing else to do. Malcolm X would read late into the morning despite that guard
Everyone remembers when they learned to read and write some more than others. Even well known people like Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X. They wrote narratives, “Learning to Read And Write” by Frederick Douglass and “Learning to Read” by Malcolm X, to show us when, where, and how they learned to read and write. Both authors go through struggles that we would never think could or would happen. Even though they go through struggles they still became eager to learn more to better themselves. It gave them power they never thought they could achieve. They have many similar and different trials that they went through so they could learn how to read and write.
The chapter seventeen, of the autobiography of Malcolm X, is about Malcolm X’s experiences during his visit to Mecca to perform hajj He was a Muslim minister, a leader in Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam. In the beginning of this chapter, Malcolm X starts off by telling the readers that all Muslims must attempt the pilgrimage, or hajj, to Mecca at least once, "if humanly able".
Malcolm Little was born on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska. At the time of his birth, Malcolm's father was a Baptist Minister. His mom was a writer of Marcus Garvey. Before he was born, his father had 3 children with his previous marriage and 3 before him with his mom.
The short story “Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie, and the excerpt “Learning to Read” from The Autobiography of Malcom X had similar themes, although they were written with different styles. The theme these two stories had alike was the power of learning through books and reading. Sherman Alexie and Malcom X both drastically improved their education by teaching themselves new things. They did this by reading books, dictionaries, and anything else that interested them. It is amazing what these two men have done for themselves, and very inspiring. Sherman Alexie became a successful writer, and Malcom X became one of the most powerful leaders of black America. The impact that books and other written pieces had on these men did not happen overnight, but in the end it was time well spent.
Malcom X in my perspective is a person who shows great determination and perseverance because although he was incarcerated, he found the need to educate himself. Society expects inmates to come out the same way they went in, and not be productive citizens. Aside from being incarcerated, Malcom X lived in a time period when African Americans weren’t seen as the most intellectual race group by the nation and he overcame that by making his time in prison useful. It comes to demonstrate that if you truly want to improve your well-being you have to be the one willing to invest yourself. In his essay Malcom X states, “In fact, up to then, I never had been truly free in my life,” (para.9), giving us the understanding that being literate gives you a sense of accomplishment and changes you as a person. Learning to read and write is extremely important in our culture because without it we don’t progress as fast, or as much, like others do. Reading and writing is critical because we get to comprehend more of what is going on in our surroundings and engage in society to help improve others aside from ourselves and the community. Malcom X’s experience teaches us that being literate is power. It is the power to do something beyond of what we think we are capable of doing. It is the power to not let your faith be in the hands of
According to the New York City writing project at Lehman College ,“... Reading, writing and thinking are interrelated activities that contribute to the student’s success in school, college, the community and the workplace.” Reading and writing and thinking are associated with each other and can actually help people reach success through the power of reflection. Reflection is being able to think of our past and present experience and really analyze how we can become better. Reflection also allows one to better understand what is going on around us. Frederick Douglass and Amy Tan’s literacy and language allowed them to achieve success through reflection. Frederick Douglass was a slave that learned how to read and write even besides the
Analysis of Malcolm X Shot and killed at the young age of thirty- nine. A man who was not quite finished with his literary learning. The author Malcolm X of Discovering the Power of Language. Is what Malcolm x uses to tell the world about his struggle for a larger intellect. As knowledge is gained so was the power of Malcolm's speeches. In Discovering the Power of Language Malcolm takes his audience through his own journey of how he once spoke in the past.
Malcolm X’s “Learning to Read,” is a powerful piece about his time in prison when he taught himself how to read. Through his reading, he discovered the awful things that happened in history and became a civil rights activist. Malcolm X changed his feeling and position throughout his piece, “Learning to Read.” His emotions are clear in his writing, but the change in his writing is clear to be caused by a change in his own thoughts because of the things he learned. The essay shows his lack of reading skills when he was young, but also how interested he became in it, and how much he uses it. He says that reading is important to readers' lives just as it was to his, helping one to form their own thoughts and views. Without the ability to read and understand the world, it becomes difficult to build your own ethical views.
“Learning to Read and Write” by Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X’s “Learning to Read” address their abilities of being self taught to read and write. A deficiency of education makes it difficult to traverse life in any case your race. Being an African American while in a dark period of mistreatment and making progress toward an advanced education demonstrates extraordinary devotion. Malcolm X seized “special pains” in searching to inform himself on “black history” (Malcolm X 3). African Americans have been persecuted all through history, yet two men endeavor to demonstrate that regardless of your past, an education can be acquired by anybody. Douglass and Malcolm X share some similarities on how they learned how to read and write as well
In Learning to Read, by Malcolm X, he talks about his studies while in prison. Having only up to an eighth grade education, Malcolm X struggles with reading and writing. The main reason he decided to learn how to read was because of the letters he received while in prison, primarily from Elijah Muhammad. (X 354). He wasn’t able to write responses to them like he wanted to without using slang. Along with not being able to write letters, Malcolm X couldn’t read books without skipping over most of the words, thus motivating him to study an entire dictionary. With the use of said dictionary, he also improved his penmanship by writing down every word, definition, and punctuation he saw. (X 355). Once he memorized the whole dictionary, he was then able to read books. There wasn’t a moment where Malcolm wasn’t reading even at night when the lights were out, he still managed to use the little bit of light shining into his cell to read.
Malcolm X or Malcolm Little and also known as “El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz”, was an African-American Muslim minister and a human rights activist. He had a hard child a young adult life. His admirers he was a courageous speaking for the rights of blacks, a man who accuses white America in the meanest terms for their crimes against black Americans; critics accused him of preaching racism and violence. “He has been called one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history along with martin luther king jr.” based on some of the things malcolm has done, Martin luther king jr. definitely had a different way of approaching issues. with both of their totally different way of getting their point across, discussion could be made on who was more effective in the civil rights movement as a whole. If Malcolm x wasn't around and fighting for civil right around the same time as MLK was doing it here he probably would of had much of a chance and would have just been killed, he in a way motivated the whole world into fighting for civil rights in their country, without his “black power” philosophy. he was easily in the top five people that got the civil right movement to follows it course and end up get equality for black and white.
Having the knowledge to read and write may take someone into a completely different universe, it allows to see reality or escape from reality. It gives a better understanding of what goes on in the world, that being good or bad depending on how he wants to see it. Malcolm X wrote a short story " A Homemade Education," about how, his experience in prison allowed him to gain knowledge and to grow as an individual. Learning to read and write showed him, how to be mentally alive in a way that changed his life forever. He took it as an ability to grow, to make a change for himself and possibly make a difference in the world. Malcolm X explained how it 's never too late to get an education, there is always time for one to change in life. It is