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This short story is about Sherman Alexie’s life as an Indian boy living on the Spokane Indian Reserve in eastern Wellpinit, Washington, this short story is about how reading and writing affected his life. The joy of reading and writing: superman and me displays his characterize mix of popular culture reference and reflection. The story opens up by Sherman Alexie saying “I learn to read with a Superman comic book”. What he remembered at the age of 3, he was a poor broken Indian boy living with his family on the Indian reservation in eastern Washington State. We we’re poor by most living standards, but one of his parents managed to find some minimum wage job or another which made the middle class by reservation standards. He lived on a combination of irregular paychecks, hope, fear and government surplus food.
His father brought home books by the pound at The Dutch's pawn shop, Goodwill, Salvation Army, and the Value Village. With extra money he bought new novels at supermarkets, convenience stores, and Hospital gift shops. Their house was filled with books in the bedroom, bathrooms, and living rooms. His father loves books, so he decided to love books as well. He picks up his father’s book before he could read. The words were a struggle for
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him to understand since he is a non-American and knowing the fact that he didn't have the vocabulary to say paragraph. He then became to realize that a paragraph was” A fence that held words”. He said inside his house, each family member existed as a separate paragraph. As Sherman Alexie's repeats "Superman is breaking down the door", he then assumes and says " I am breaking down the door".
In this way he learned how to read. This saying is a metaphor for him learning how to read. With the same similarities as superman, Sherman Alexie was an alien due to being a smart Indian boy that was widely feared and ridiculed by Indians and Non-Indians alike. Connecting or relating a topic to a teen audience can perfervidly convey the message out "That reading can save life's" or help people to find their voice throughout reading. He wrote this essay to describe what his life was like being and Indian, a smart Indian boy as that, and how that they are afraid to learn because of what people expect of
them. I believe that the way Sherman Alexie engaged the reader is because he made a connection to super man and how he was breaking down the door. Most people either grew up watching superman or faced challenges that were difficult for a person to overcome. Unlike many of the other Indian children, Alexie refused to fail in school. Sherman Alexie became a writer to teach kids that are also, immigrants and how the adventures of reading can make them well known to people who are educating themselves.
Sherman Alexie describes in his essay “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” how he taught himself to read at the age of three from a Superman comic book. Alexie was raised by a low-class Indian family on a reservation. His teachers were white and being an "intelligent Indian"
Sherman Alexis a Spokane/Coeur d’Alene Indian who wrote “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and me”. In the short story explains how he learned to read and write even with limited resources on the reservation where he grew up. He starts his story by using popular culture describing how he learned how to read using a comic book about “Superman”. He also explained why Indian children were never supposed to amount to anything in life and that they were supposed to be dumb among Non-Indians. He wanted to let other Indian students that reading is what saved his life. It opened up his mind and made him a better person today.
Living in hard conditions, can make the person understand the world better. Being disabled, can create from the person a novelist. Hearing another stories, can help the person to live satisfy. Learning history, can teach the person to be unjudged. Embodiment the author to his real experience in some of his stories, consider as the most tentacles talk that can touch reader's heart. Because he lived, heard, learned, embodied, and according to all of his written, Sherman Alexie classified as the most successful writer who his words represent the reality. The story “Flight Patterns,” which was written by Sherman Alexie was representing some perspectives from his own life, like being Native American, and person with disability. The story also was about the severe problems people in this world have with profiling. It doesn’t matter if you’re White, Black, Indian, Spanish, Muslim, Jewish, rich, or even poor everyone does it. The two character I would like to focus on in this story is called William and Fekadu.
The purpose of this story was to help other Indian children that are in the same position he is at to save their lives with reading. Why with reading though? Because reading is a basic skill of knowledge that will lead your to more and more intelligence. He shares in the last paragraph of his short story that there are two different students. The ones that are already saving their lives by reading his stories and fleeing to him when he comes to the reservations and those that have already given up and are defeated in the last row in the back of the class room. Sherman Alexie effectively states clearly “I am trying to save our lives.” He uses pathos, logos, and ethos effectively to describe his difficult life in the Indian reservations and how he persevered and strikes the world as an intelligent boy. Alexie says. “A smart Indian is a dangerous person, widely feared and ridiculed by Indians and non-Indians alike. We were indian children who were expected to be stupid.” Even though Alexie became and incredibly smart, he never became an of those things. He was known as an idol, trying to save the lives of young Indian children in the
In this essay, McFarland discusses Native American poetry and Sherman Alexie’s works. He provides an overview of Alexie’s writing in both his poems and short stories. A brief analysis of Alexie’s use of humor is also included.
Sherman Alexie grew up in Wellpinit, Washington as a Spokane/Coeur d’Alene tribal member (Sherman Alexie). He began his personal battle with substance abuse in 1985 during his freshman year at Jesuit Gonzaga University. The success of his first published work in 1990 incentivized Alexie to overcome his alcohol abuse. “In his short-story and poetry collections, Alexie illuminates the despair, poverty, and alcoholism that often shape the lives of Native Americans living on reservations” (Sherman Alexie). When developing his characters, Alexie often gives them characteristics of substance abuse, poverty and criminal behaviors in an effort to evoke sadness with his readers. Alexie utilizes other art forms, such as film, music, cartoons, and the print media, to bombard mainstream distortion of Indian culture and to redefine Indianness. “Both the term Indian and the stereotypical image are created through histories of misrepresentation—one is a simulated word without a tribal real and the other an i...
Alexie Sherman, a boy under an Indian Reservation that suffers from bullying since the 1st grade, who would have a hard time being around white people and even Indian boys. US Government provided him glasses, accommodation, and alimentation. Alexie chose to use the title "Indian Education" in an effort to express his internalized feelings towards the Native American education system and the way he grew up. He uses short stories separated by the different grades from first grade to twelfth grade to give an idea of what his life was like. He seemed to have grown up in a world surrounded by racism, discrimination, and bullying. This leads on to why he chose not to use the term Native American. He used the term "Indian" to generate negative connotations
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 essay, it is evident that he faces many issues and is very frustrated growing up as an American Indian. Growing up, Alexie faces discrimination from white people, who he portrays as evil in every way, to show that his childhood was filled with anger, fear, and sorrow.
While both Zitkala Sa and Sherman Alexie were Native Americans, and take on a similar persona showcasing their native culture in their text, the two diverge in the situations that they face. Zitkala Sa’s writing takes on a more timid shade as she is incorporated into the “white” culture, whereas Alexie more boldly and willingly immerses himself into the culture of the white man. One must leave something behind in order to realize how important it actually is. Alexie grew up in the Indian culture but unlike Sa he willingly leaves. Alexie specifically showcases the changes in his life throughout the structure of his text through the idea of education.
Reading a book is a great entertainment, but more importantly, it gives you more knowledge to learn. In a short story entitled “Superman and me” by Sherman Alexie, he discussed how it’s like to be in a minority, or an Indian in a non-Indian world, and how reading helped him get through it. Growing up, his father influenced him into reading books. Due to this he started to teach himself how to read and gained more knowledge. Though he is smart, it was hard for him to be noticed, “Indian children were expected to be stupid,” because of this he worked hard and proved the majority what he is capable of. Alexie’s passion in reading had helped himself and his fellow man rise against all the discrimination and be accepted by
American Indian students make up less than one percent of college or higher education students, and less than one third of American Indian students are continuing education after high school. In his memoir essay The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me, Sherman Alexie recalls learning to read, growing up on a reservation where he was expected to fail, and working tirelessly to read more and become a writer. Sherman Alexie had to overcome stereotypes in order to be accepted as smart and become a writer, which shows that it is harder for people who are stereotyped to be successful because they have less opportunities.
In the library she would alternate what types of books they would read. Whenever she would read to him she would read in a way that made you cling to every word the author wrote. In times like these, Rodriguez would become engaged in these books. “I sat there and sensed for the very first time some possibility of fellowship between reader and writer, a communication, never intimate like that I heard spoken words at home convey, but nonetheless personal.” (Rodriguez 228). During this part of Rodriguez’s life, his view towards books changed.
Alexie, Sherman. “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” Writer’s Presence: A Pool of Readings. 5th ed. Ed. Robert Atawan and Donald McQuade. Boston:Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006. 73-76. Print
Have you ever been put down or discouraged for something you believe in or are good at? Well Sherman Alexie has. You would be surprised by who he is most like; the strong and inspirational Superman. Although Superman is a fictional character, him and Alexie both ‘break down doors’, get looked down upon, and are role models.
This passion of his inspired a unique understanding and visualization of how paragraphs work. Eventually, he started seeing the entire world around him in terms of paragraphs. During this time he also picked up a Superman comic book. This comic book was an important tool in his learning. Alexie quotes, ‘’Because he is breaking down the door, I assume he says, "I am breaking down the door." Once again, I pretend to read the words and say aloud, "I am breaking down the door" In this way, I learned to read.’’ This quote demonstrates Alexie’s overall method of learning how to read on his own. He became his own teacher. Despite living in poverty, Alexie continued on working toward reaching his dream goal. There was still another obstacle Sherman Alexie had to overcome. He writes, ‘’As Indian children, we were expected to fail in the non-Indian world. Those who failed were ceremonially accepted by other Indians and appropriately pitied by non-Indians.’’ This quote reinforces the idea that Sherman Alexie was not given any support. Mainly, because Indians were not expected to become intelligent. It was a struggle for Alexie to become smart in a system with low expectations. It was hard for him to become smart, and be accepted by