Ramey 1

Griffin Ramey

Writing and Rhetoric

Andrew Pinkerton

12 February 2018

Unit 1 Major Assignment; Comparative Analysis

In the two texts that were read, I learned how two people in two separate communities

and situations taught themselves to read. Malcolm X, a black man who was a popular figure

during the civil rights movement, taught himself to read in jail so he could better himself and his

speech. Sherman Alexie, a Native American who grew up on a reservation, taught himself to read

for similar reasons. The two authors have very similar reasons for teaching themselves to read

including forwarding their movements, making themselves more intelligent for their own want

and to help younger people have a model to look up to.

In “Superman and Me,” Alexie talks about his story of learning to read in his reservation

using comic books. He would relate the words in the panels to the pictures shown in the same

panel using context he found. His father had a lot of books, so he would pick up the books and

even though he did not know how to read, he would still look through them. At a young age, he

was much further ahead of the kids who were only doing what they had to in school. He talked

about reading books like “Grapes of Wrath” while the other kids were reading “Dick and Jane.”

A very significant part of the book is the last line, “I am trying to save our lives.”(Alexie, 4) He

is talking to the kids who are not even trying in the class. He says, “The pages of their notebooks

are empty. They carry neither pencil nor pen. They stare out the window.”(Alexie, 4) He knows
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they will not actually do anything if they do not learn, so he is “throwing his weight against their

locked doors,”(Alexie, 4) trying to get to them and show them how important books are.

A very important part of “Superman and Me” is Alexie’s explanations about the people

that the reservation accepted or did not accept. He has multiple parts in the essay where he says

the people there did not like a certain other person, either based on traits or looks. There are also

parts where he says there were expectations for people based on their origin. The first example of

this is when he said how he was reading way ahead of his classmates in school and it was

thought that, “A smart Indian is a dangerous person, widely feared and ridiculed by Indians and

non-Indians alike.” (Alexie, 3) This statement on its own shows how the society feeds into the

children not trying in school and playing dumb. There was no desire to become smart because

the intelligent children were made fun of and outcasted. This is further reinforced a few

sentences later when Alexie says, “We were Indian children who were expected to be

stupid.”(Alexie, 3) In the same paragraph he shows the feeling of the reservation to white people.

He says, “They submissively ducked their heads when confronted by a non-Indian adult but

would slug it out with the Indian bully who was 10 years older.”(Alexie, 3) This quote is very

important to understand the mentality of many of the people. Being 10 years younger than

someone, especially as a kid, can be very daunting, yet the kids would get into fights with those

older than them. Meanwhile they would be nervous and scared when being near someone who

was not like them. Yet another example of this is the fact that “Those who failed were

ceremonially accepted by other Indians and appropriately pitied by non-Indians.”(Alexie, 3)

Again, why would they take the time to try if it did not matter to anyone and they were

considered normal.
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In “Learning to Read,” Malcolm X discussed his time in jail and how much it bettered

him to help his own cause. He said, “I had been the most articulate hustler out there – I had

commanded attention when I said something. But now, trying to write simple English, I not only

wasn’t articulate, I wasn’t even functional.”(X, 1) Once he got into jail, he had a huge library that

he was able to use to teach himself to read and write. He even stated that, “Any college library

would have been lucky to get that kind of collection”.(X, 3) This sentence is, in my opinion,

significant. He is in jail reading, after having a failed experience in public education, and he goes

back to talking about education outside of jail. This sentence is another way for him to say how

much better it is for him to learn in jail than in a college, because of the collection that they

possess. At the bottom of page seven (173), a paragraph is started that summarizes almost all the

important parts of the text into one area. This section is a significant portion, giving you his

complete opinion on himself learning to read. He states, “As I see it today, the ability to read

awoke inside me some long dormant craving to me mentally alive…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.” (X, 7) He knows that without teaching himself to read, he would not be

as influential of a figure as he was.

During his stay in jail, he learned a lot from reading that would help him in his fight for

civil rights after he got released. He talked about reading books about black history, to make up

for the fact that in school “…the history of the Negro had been covered in one paragraph.”(X, 3)

He listed six books he read that gave him many of his beliefs and knowledge of black history and

black people. He read about the horrors of slavery and what really happened, the colonization of

Africa during the slave trade to collect resources, and many other topics that were not covered in

his schooling. After he was released from jail, he used all his newfound knowledge to preach to
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people and tell them everything he knew. He wanted to share the history of black people with the

black people of the time.

The biggest and most obvious connection between the two texts is that formal education

is not the best for everybody. Malcolm X’s formal education failed to teach him, and he had to go

to jail to learn to read, which is supposed to be learned very early on in formal education. Alexie

had learned to read at home by himself using comic books. Again, had not been taught in public

schools. They both realized this kind of literacy was needed to do what they wanted, so they took

in upon themselves to do it. Malcolm and Alexie used their newfound education to help others.

Malcolm taught other people of the events that he read about in jail and connecting it to them. He

used these events as motivation to further the Civil Rights Movement and inform other people on

how to do the same. Alexie used his abilities to help the kids in the schools who he knew were

smart but did not really try as hard as they could.

Another similarity between the text is the way they were treated in their communities

when they had formal education. In “Superman and Me” it is told that the people who failed in

school were accepted by the community. In “Learning to Read” Malcolm tells that it was normal

for black people to fail school in those days and that it did not influence the community’s

perspective of others in the community. The difference in the two is when Alexie had his own

education he worked to become a stand-out person, he was ostracized by the community, and he

scared the Indians in the reservation, yet Malcolm, after he got out of jail with his new education,

was welcomed and became a huge leader and influencer in the Civil Rights Movement.

The differences between the two texts are the backgrounds in which the two men grew

up. Alexie was a Native American and grew up on a reservation with no real connection to the

outside world besides the teachers that would come in. Malcolm was a black man who did not
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really have a home anywhere specific, but he would have contact to everybody in the

community. Malcolm had people who were white that did not like him, while Alexie was

confined to his own community of people like him.

Both texts show the similarities and differences of the situations these men learned to

read in and why they learned to read. They both learned to read and used it to try and better their

communities, but they differ in the communities themselves and how it shaped them. I think the

authors were correct in their thought that you can learn on your own more in some things than

you would if you only used public education.

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Works Cited

May, Cactus, et al. Readings on writing. 3rd ed., Van-Griner Publishing, 2017. ; Sherman,
Alexie. The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me. Milkweed Editions, 1997
May, Cactus, et al. Readings on writing. 3rd ed., Van-Griner Publishing, 2017. ; X, Malcolm. and
Alex Haley. The autobiography of Malcolm X. Ballantine Books, 1965.