Similarities Between Sherman Alexie, Malcolm X And...

â€Å"The goal of education is not to increase the amount of knowledge but to create the possibilities for a child to invent and discover, to create men who are capable of doing new things† (Jean Piaget). Before one ever starts attending school, their very first lesson is to become literate in the language they speak. From reading sentences to reading paragraphs to reading novels, we try to achieve literacy. However, some of the greatest public speakers and writers did not achieve it through the way most people did. This is shown in the literary works of Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X, and Sherman Alexie. Like these people, literacy isn’t achieved by simply going to school. It’s achieved through great perseverance and through great tenacity.†¦show more content†¦In his autobiography, he writes about his time in prison and his frustration in not being able to communicate properly to Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm X started copying words from the dictionary and everything on the page down to the punctuation and began reading books on history, philosophy, and religion. He writes, â€Å"I copied into my tablet everything printed on that first page, down to the punctuation marks. . . As my word-base broadened, I could for the first time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand what the book was saying.† As for Sherman Alexie, a Native American who grew up on the reservation, found an early interest in reading when he stumbled upon a Superman comic book. He had begun to associate the pictures to words that were on a page. â€Å"I look at the narrative above the picture. I cannot read the words, but I assume it tells me that ‘Superman is breaking down the door.’ Aloud, I pretend to read the words and say, ‘Superman is breaking down the door.’ Words, dialogue, also float out of Superman s mouth. Because he is breaking down the door, I assume he says, ‘I am breaking down the door.’† Despite not having a traditional education, Alexie was able to assemble a meaning of a paragraph which opened up a new world to him in multiple ways Becoming literate opens the doors to more educational and employment opportunities. In our increasingly complex and rapidly changing technological world, it is essential that individuals