Reflection Of A Book: Learning To Read By Malcolm X

Here I was once again staring down at the open test on my desk and trying desperately to read the words staring back at me but to no avail. When I look up I know that I’ll see my classmates’ pencils moving quickly across the test while others have already turned it over on their desk. I could feel my teacher standing over me concerned that all that was written on my test was my name. Finally, she asked me what the problem was; did I not know what a word meant? If I didn’t it wasn’t a problem. I could just point to it and she would tell me. So I did and I pointed to the first word of the first question, then the following word, and the following word until she had translated the whole question for me. Not that it made much of a difference since

One person in particular who this proved to be true for was Malcolm X. While in prison Malcolm X taught himself to read; he began by copying the pages of a dictionary word for word then he would try to read the words. He was amazed after reading the dictionary because he had no idea that many words even existed. From then on he felt a need to keep reading to keep learning more. Now that this whole new world opened up to him, he had no plans of stopping. In this short story titled “Learning to Read” about his experience in jail, he states, “I never will forget how shocked I was when I began reading about slavery 's total horror. It made such an impact upon me that it later became one of my favorite subjects when I became a minister of Mr. Muhammad 's. The world 's most monstrous crime, the sin and the blood on the white man 's hands, are almost impossible to believe. Books like the one by Frederick Olmsted opened my eyes to the horrors suffered when the slave was landed in the United States.” It seemed as if every book he read evoked a new emotion from him. His emotions ranged based on the books he read whether it was a fascination with the fact that there were once black emperors or horror at what slaves had to endure. One thing that continued to stay the same was that the more books he read and the more he learned made him feel empowered. He truly understood that knowledge is

Whether it’s what you write or what you read, it always brings forward emotions. Sherman Alexie felt desperate and determined to keep on reading after he learned to because he knew the importance of reading and he let those emotions drive him to continue. Amy Tan felt embarrassed by her mother 's literacy but later came to love it and think of it as their own private language. While Malcolm X 's life, mind, and emotions were altered by everything he read. Literacy will always have an influence on people 's