The Joy Of Reading And Writing: Superman And Me

Sherman Alexie uses rhetorical strategies such as appeals to emotion, logic and character to hold the reader’s attention. Emotion is arguably be the most unvarying appeal that you encounter throughout the essay. He states, “A little Indian boy teaches himself to read at an early age and advances quickly…if he’d been anything but an Indian boy living on the reservation, he might have been called a prodigy.”

What would you do if you could not read? What problems do you think you would come across? After reading Malcolm X’s “Learning to Read” and Sherman Alexie’s piece, “Superman and Me”, these are a few questions that a reader might ask themselves. Sherman Alexie and Malcolm X are both great writers. This was not always the case though. Malcolm X and Sherman Alexie taught themselves how to read. Alexie at a young age Malcolm X, as a young adult. After they learned to read and write they wrote for many reasons and about many topics. When reading these two essays, you can see that there are many things that are significantly the same as well as having some differences all throughout the text. These similarities and differences include the pathos in both essays, and the ethos that Alexie has that Malcolm does not have pertaining to the subject of their papers. In Malcolm X’s “Learning to Read” and Sherman Alexie’s “Superman and Me” they are both trying to persuade the reader that something needs to be done and why.

The short story “Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie is a recurrence of how Alexie learned to read, despite the setback of growing up on an Indian reservation where children were stereotypically dull. This was because they were told from the beginning of their lives by everyone outside of the reservation that they were dumb and they were expected to be this way for the rest of their lives. However, at an early age, Alexie picked up one of his father’s many books; a superman comic, and he begins to learn to read, which he says saved his life. Alexie begins his short story by telling the reader how he first learned to read. His father collected many books, so there were always plenty of books around the house.

The short story “Superman and Me,” by Sherman Alexie is a look back into his childhood to point out how and when he began to read. He also uses it as an outlet to show where reading took him in life. In this paper, I will attempt to give an overview of his thoughts and experiences, while also sharing my thoughts on it. In doing so, I hope to point out how reading guided him throughout his childhood, and into adulthood. He explains that his love for reading was his way of trying to save his life (Alexie 3). Reading is an essential function, that when used can help anyone excel into a growth far from what is expected.

In "Superman and Me," Alexie's claim declares that reading can make a difference in a person's life.

Have you ever considered if a literary education is a necessity or a privilege? After reading Sherman Alexie’s article “The Joy of Reading and Writing : Superman and Me” I definitely began thinking on this question. Alexie argues that low socioeconomic groups specifically Spokane Indians need a better literary education to help counter the cultural expectation. I feel Alexie effectively persuades the reader through his personal experiences and by using pathos and ethos.

In contrast, “Superman and Me “ by Sherman Alexie tells the story of Alexie, as a young Indian boy, fighting his way through life. Alexie’s autobiography tells a story of how tough life can be as a Spokane Indian boy. He lived in Eastern Washington State on the Spokane Indian Reservation, this is where he and his brother and sisters resided. Alexie stated that, “ We lived on a combination of irregular paychecks, hope, fear, and government surplus foods”(Alexie 1). Poor, below the poverty point, but managed to find a job here and there making them middle-class. With the money Alexie’s father makes he provided them with their every needs. Additionally his father buys books because he is an

The non-Indians and Indians alike alienated young Alexie at school. In order to conform to subservient expectations, smart Indian children were bullied into not actively talking or participating in class further emphasizing “Indian children who were expected to be stupid” (Alexie). Teachers would ignore the peer pressuring and bullying happening around them. Because the non-Indians actively denied the Indian kids of participating in school, they could not assimilate. Despite the persistence of non-Indians and Indians to deny Alexie the right to learn, he persevered and overcame adversity. His father inspired him “My father loved books, and since I loved my father with an aching devotion, I decided to love books as well” paving the road to the rest of his life (Alexie). Alexie assimilated to the American way of life, but he did not forget his roots. Contrary to what he originally thought the direction his life was heading toward,

He exhibits the use of a metaphor where he refers to the Superman comic and how he is breaking down a door. “Because he is breaking down the door, I assume he says, “I am breaking down the door.”… In this way, I learned to read.” This is another substantial example that demonstrates how Sherman Alexie learned to read. This use of metaphor can also mean something dissimilar. The “breaking down the doors” can simply mean breaking the barriers situated in the lives of these Indian children. The “doors” are “obstacles” such as the obstacle of stereotypes that these children live upon every single day of their lives. But Alexie believes that these children can do it just like Superman man did. Superman wasn’t from this world. He was a man who felt like he didn’t belong in this world which is why the metaphor of Superman and the doors is such an eminent part of Alexie’s main message. Also, Alexie uses the device of repetition. He repeated the word I in the beginning of each sentence in paragraph 7. “I refuse to fail. I was smart. I was arrogant. I was lucky…. I loved those books, but I also knew that love had only one purpose. I was trying to save my life.” By using this repetition all throughout the paragraph, he tries to imply that you don’t need fancy novels to learn to read. Simply by reading things in

In the text “Superman and Me” Sherman Alexie tells how he learned to read. He also tells how Indian boys were not focused on in school. The text states, “We were Indian children who were expected to be stupid.” He explains how he was not stupid like the other indian boys he was smart. He states, “I refused to fail. I was smart. I was arrogant. I was lucky.”

Reading “The Joy of reading and Writing: Superman and Me,” gave me a different perspective of reading and writing. Sherman Alexie, who grew up on the Spokane Reservation in Wellpinit, Washington, explains his life as an Indian boy, and how reading and writing helped his life to succeed. Alexie purposes is to discuss how he first learned how to read and write, his intelligence as a young Indian boy, and Alexie as an adult teaching creative writing to Indians children. Alexie learned not only how to read but to love reading. He used his love of reading to propel himself through the school system, removing himself from the stereotypical to be dumb, quiet, poor, and to fail in life.

In our current society, literacy is defined as the ability to read and write. Though this is a common trait among individuals in our society, it is one that I view unique to every individual who had the opportunity to obtain it. I will retell my literacy journey in a way that encompasses one of my favorite theories in writing, the mono-tale of the Hero’s Journey by Joseph Campbell. This theory states that the Hero’s journey is a pattern in a narrative that forms the basic template of all great stories (Gunn 1).

Alexie goes on to demonstrate how his passion for reading influenced his childhood. He describes that, before he could even read, he would recognize what a paragraph was. Alexie explains, “I realized that a paragraph was a fence that held words” (Alexie 279). Then, Alexie further explains how he correlated other things in his life as paragraphs, such as the reservation in respect to the United States or the individual members of his family. He goes on to clarify how he found the Superman comic and viewed each panel, with text and illustrations, separately as its own paragraph. Alexie states that while reading the comic he says, “Aloud, I pretend to read the words” (Alexie 280). He knew these paragraphs together told a story and even though he could not read, he used the pictures to assume what the narrative was saying. With these details of his early beginnings of learning to read, the reader can further establish that his family’s economic status had no

Sherman Alexie recalls his childhood memory of learning to read, and his teaching experience in “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me”. He devotes his interest to reading. By this way, he breaks the stereotype that Indian boys are expected to be stupid and dumb, and later on he becomes a successful writer because of his endeavor to read. Alexie vividly narrates his younger life by using metaphor and repetition with a confident tone, in order to strengthen his description of his reading talent, his influence to the other Indian boys and how he struggles in poverty to change his life.

Growing up as a Native American boy on a reservation, Sherman Alexie was not expected to succeed outside of his reservation home. The expectations for Native American children were not very high, but Alexie burst out of the stereotype and expectations put by white men. Young Native Americans were not expected to overcome their stereotypes and were forced to succumb to low levels of reading and writing “he was expected to fail in a non-Indian world” (Alexie 3), but Alexie was born with a passion for reading and writing, so much so that he taught himself to read at age three by simply looking at images in Marvel comics and piecing the words and pictures together. No young Native American had made it out of his reservation to become a successful writer like he did. This fabricates a clear ethos for Alexie, he is a perfect underdog in an imperfect world.