I am not a professional reader, nor am I a professional writer. As a matter of fact, I don’t like writing at all, but then writing is a part of life. I was only 6 years old when I started to take an interest in reading and also started to learn how to read. My grandmother was a greater reader. She would read to me all the time and encourage me to read anything I could get my hands on. I would always see her with a book during her spare time.…
In Learning to Read, Malcolm X, one of the most articulate and powerful leaders of black America during the 1960s, describes his struggle of self-education while being incarcerated. Malcolm X composed his journey of self-in order to convey the message that the reader should strive to look for more than what is taught to them by the public school system, to, in a way, look outside the box.…
As a very successful author, Stephen King feels as if he knows what it takes to be a fruitful writer. He shares his thoughts with the public through his essay “Reading to Write.” In the text, King addresses his opinion on the importance of reading to become a good writer. Through the writing of the essay, he wishes to encourage uprising or developing writers to read more. The persuasive essay is mainly directed towards anyone who wants to become a writer or anyone who wants to improve their writing skills. If one who does not wish to become a writer stumbles upon this essay, even they may be inspired to read more as well. Throughout the essay, King uses strong rhetorical strategies such as Ethos, Logos and Pathos to express his opinion and…
By reading the passages on Malcolm X, Richard Wright, and Sherman Alexie it is only obvious that reading brought enlightenment to their lives, and all three authors have a lot in common. These significant people felt trapped in some form, and their insatiable hunger for reading set them free. They were all fascinated with the act of reading, and they all taught themselves, and gave themselves the education needed to enlighten and influence others. Discovering how to read provided many opportunities beyond their imagination, it empowered these individuals, as if being a minority didn’t matter anymore.…
In Malcolm X’s “Learning to Read,” he talks about his time in prison and how he decided to teach himself about things he never learned in school. While Malcolm X was in jail he decided to improve his vocabulary by reading the dictionary and copying all of the definitions. This helped him become more eloquent of a writer and paved the way for him to be able to read more difficult books. When Malcolm X began to read seriously he discovered a violent past that most people tended to avoid mentioning; the history of the white man. He read about how white people conquered lands, enslaved countless numbers of people, and tricked trusting people.…
In "A Homemade Education", Malcolm X admits his frustration about his inability to express himself the way he'd like to. It can be said that Malcolm X was discouraged as he mentioned that he "wasn’t even functional" (Malcolm X 134) and though he did feel this way he turned the negative feelings into something to strive for. In the Charlestown prison Malcolm X was in there was another inmate named Bimbi who he envied because of his ability to use words and his knowledge. Malcolm X's envy of Bimbi drove and inspired him to seek and ultimately further his own education in a sense in deciding to read and copy out of the dictionary. Malcolm X gained a hunger for the knowledge he was obtaining as exemplified in the following quotation: " I could for the first time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand what the book was saying... in every free moment I had, if I was not reading in the library, I was reading in my bunk... In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life." (Malcolm X 135). Malcolm X used his time as way to learn everything he possibly could so that he wouldn’t have to be envious of the knowledge someone else possessed. In Maya Angelou's "Graduation", Angelou also showed her discouragement by the words of Edward Donleavy at her graduation who told the congregation of how many more opportunities whites had over blacks. Angelou's graduation was an occasion that had so many excited because they had worked so hard to accomplish the feat of gaining an education and they were also excited for what their future had in store for them; however, many of them including Angelou felt in the moment that those hopes and…
In “Learning to Read ‘excerpt from The Autobiography of Malcolm X’”. Mr. X tells us about how reading had such a tremendous impact in his life. In fact it made him who he was. While in prison he met an inmate named Bimbi who talked him into reading as much as he could. Mr. X started off with reading a dictionary, and as time passed he went on to more articulate readings. After reading book after book on Anti-slavery and realizing and gaining more knowledge of horrible things people did to African Americans. It showed him how…
What motivated Malcolm X to educate himself was his inability to express himself in an appropriated way. In the streets, Malcolm X was someone important, someone who could express himself without problem “In the streets, I had been the most articulate hustler out there- I had commanded attention when I said something” (X 189). Nevertheless, during his time in Charlestown Prison, trying to write a letter for Mr. Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X comprehended that he was not able to explain his thoughts or feelings clearly in words without using the language of the streets. Malcolm X realized that his language skills as writing, reading and speaking were unskilled “But now, trying to write simple English, I not only wasn’t articulate, I wasn’t even…
Where does the desire to not just live, but strive come from? To not just succeed but exceed? To not just be great but be the only thing acceptable in one’s heart, the best. In “You Should Have Been a Boy,” Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s determination to make her father proud, drove her to do what most women of her time never did: earn a higher education or speak out against injustice. In the essay, “Superman and Me,” Sherman Alexie’s unrelenting passion for reading allowed him to turn a blind eye to the ridicule that his peers endowed upon him and helped him push pass the limitations that had been placed on his people. Malcolm X describes in “Learning to Read,” how his illiteracy prevented him from expressing his beliefs but his…
After reading the article, “Reading Like a Writer”, it made me aware of my reading behaviors. Just like the text, I read to try to understand what the author is attempting to portray. However, what I am doing differently is only reading for information. What the text suggests that readers do is to ask yourself why the author used that method of writing, whether it's persuasive, ironic, or dramatic. Additionally, the author recommends that you discover who the intended audience is; this will benefit you because it makes you understand why the author used this style of writing.…
Nonetheless, he ends up at a similar conclusion: Knowledge will give him the ability to assume control of a situation and to influence others with his words—not only spoken, but written as well. It is a fellow prison inmate, Bimbi, who first inspires Malcolm X. “It had really begun . . . when Bimbi first made me feel envy of his stock of knowledge,” Malcolm X expresses. “Bimbi had always taken charge of any conversations he was in . . .” (1). Through Bimbi, by failing to imitate what the inmate did, Malcolm X finds his motivation to become literate. “As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally…
When we start reading Malcolm X’s self-education story described in the “Learning to read”, we see that he was prisoned for 7 years convicted in robbery. This is a parallel to people in the Cave, same as them he couldn’t see the World, he got stacked in the Prison, which is his start point from where his journey to enlightenment has begun.Here in the Charlestown prison Malcolm X first started understand that he can’t express clearly his minds. Malcolm X said: “I became increasingly frustrated at not being able to express what I wanted to convey in letters that I…
In his article Reading to Write, Stephen King presents the idea that reading is the most important part of becoming a writer. King states “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all other: Read a lot and write a lot” (2013, p.178). He goes on to say that even now after being an accomplished an…
1. Stephen King invented the most straight-forward, humorous, and relatable memoir about writing in On Writing. Compared to his fiction novels, this while cleaner in gore, still does not beat around the bush when it comes to a piece of advice or a story from his childhood. His voice is genuine in ways that one would not expect from such a successful author, and while at times, he uses vulgar language, it is not written without a purpose. When giving advice on vocabulary, he wrote, “use the first word that comes to your mind, if it is appropriate and colorful” (118). His purpose is not to stun, bore, or just write, King wants to inspire those who read his book. Inspire them to read more, write more, learn, live, and love more than they had before. King and, “many of us proles also care… passionately about…
Neil Gaiman supports the thesis that the habit of reading is important to the development, the creativity of the people, and it is essential to innovate and invent, as he said “Fiction can show you a different world. It can take you somewhere you’ve never been. Once you’ve visited other worlds, like those who ate fairy fruit, you can never be entirely content with the world that you grew up in. Discontent is a good thing: discontented people can modify and improve their worlds, leave them better, leave them different” (Gaiman, 2013, p. 1). I agree with his point of view because I always believed that reading to get more information and knowledge is fundamentally to…