Malcolm X, Alexie, Hooks

WAW: Learning to Read, Malcolm X (353-361), The Joy of Reading and Writing:Superman and Me, Sherman Alexie (362-366)

ROW: Writing Autobiography, Bell Hooks (177-180)

SUMMARIES:

Malcolm X: In Learning to Read, they use a piece from ‘The Autobiography of Malcolm X.” It is used to show a comparison to Deborah Brandt’s article about sponsors. In Malcolm’s autobiography is very inspirational. It shows the role of motivation in literacy and learning. He also goes on to talk about how literacy sponsors affect the kinds of literacy that we eventually master. This articles goal is to make the audience be able to make a connection between their own experiences and Malcolm X’s. 

Alexie: In Sherman Alexie’s article ‘Superman and Me” he discusses how he came to literacy. He also makes a connection to Deborah Brandt’s article. He uses her term sponsorship and relates it to Superman comics and his dads love for books. He also talks about how he taught himself how to read at a young age by observing the pictures in comic books and assuming what they are saying in the picture. The audience to this article can be anyone, however it would help if you read Deborah Brandt’s article, so that way you have an understanding of literacy sponsors. 

Hooks: In Writing Autobiography, Bell Hooks writes about her childhood. She refers to herself as Gloria Jean. Hooks thought that it would be a simple task to write about ones life, an autobiography. Her autobiography is kind of sad and depressing. It dwells on the past and all of the bad things that happened through out life. However she feels better after writing the narrative because she feels as if she saved Gloria. The audience for this article is older students. This would be complicating to understand for children. 

CONNECTIONS: All three of the articles had the same kind of theme. They were all autobiographies. They all had a sappy kind of story in the beginning. At the end of all of them it turned out good and for the better. All of their lives all started out hard and they all went through a lot and didn’t have as many opportunities as others. However they all worked through it and created novels, and are now writers. 

OPINIONS:

Malcolm X: I thought that this article was very different than others. I found it to be interesting because they used a real life story. I thought it was interesting to read about what Malcolm X had to say, and how it related to Deborah Brandt’s article. I don’t really think it will be that helpful to me, it didn’t really tell me anything that I don’t already know.  I do agree when he says that college has many distractions. There are so many distractions here and sometimes it is hard to get things accomplished. 

Alexie: I personally liked this article because it was really short. I don’t enjoy the readings when they are a lot of pages. This one was quick and easy to read. I also liked how he talked about the Superman comic books and how he taught himself how to read. It can be compared to my own experiences because I would always try to read children’s picture books when I was little. When my parents would read them aloud I would try to memorize what was on each page, and I would eventually be able to read it. 

Hooks: I didn’t really like this article. I thought it was kind of depressing. Her life seemed to not be that good and she only pointed out the bad things. I didn’t really think it was that interesting. I can’t really make any comparisons between this article and my own experiences. I liked the other two articles better personally.