Sherman Alexie Superman And Me Summary

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Weikun Lu 09/16/2014 EAD II, Section 21 1.2 Professor Kalteissen Title Literacy transmits an ability to screen negative and positive while growing and it may help people change their life. Literacy always plays a key role in daily life from past to present. Sherman Alexie is the writer of “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me”. Alexie was born to a US family on the Spokane Indian Reservation in eastern Washington State and his family has[had] very poor living standard[s] but his father is[was] never miserly with books. In his essay he described[s] how he became a competitive student through reading books and gaining knowledge. Most importantly he tries to influence other Indian children’s life. His experience illustrates…show more content…
After Alexie became a writer, he often visited schools and teach creative writing to Indian kids and let them read books. Indian children were expected to be stupid but after they read books they are refreshed. He wrote about those kids in the article [run on sentence. End the last sentence with a period and then integrate the quote] “they have read my books. They have read many books. They look at me with bright eyes and arrogant wonder. They are trying to save their lives”(3) Books make those kids realize that they can save their lives by themselves rather than accepting the impression Indian kids are stupid. The words “bright” and “arrogant” shows that the kids have a different mind after gaining from books. Reading books change their mind and maybe as well as their lives. The value of literacy does not only play a role on kids but also on adults. After surviving from the holocaust, it is hard and hurt for Wiesel to recall the memory of what he and others had suffered but he chose to write the history down to let it remembered. He said[,] “I was duty-bound to give meaning to my survival, to justify each moment of my life. I knew the story had to be told. Not to transmit an experience is to betray it”(1) People would read what he wrote down and think about it. It usually comes the illusion after civilization but after reading it people might rethink about it. The impact on literacy is to let people consider what had happened with more points of view. Even though it is just Wiesel’s duty to write it down, the literacy may change people’s mind. Both authors talk about what literacy is capable of and it may change people’s

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