In Sherman Alexie's, "Superman and Me," Alexie describes growing up as an abnormally intelligent Indian boy with a love of reading, who, despite being suppressed by modern society, is trying to save lives with the power of knowledge. Sherman Alexie began his attempts of reading at the age of three, inspired by his father's love of literature. Surrounded in a house piled with a wide variety of novels from the Salvation Army or Goodwill, all the struggling family could afford, Alexie picked up a Superman comic and pieced together what he assumed the words said. He began to pick up on what a paragraph's purpose was, which sparked an epiphany in the young reservation boy's mind. By the time Alexie was in kindergarten, he was excelling with readings,
Kick Ass: The Hero’s Journey “Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging.” Joseph Campbell was the author who identified the concept of the hero’s journey. This quote can be interpreted as meaning that when hard times are forced upon people, people are often forced to look within themselves and find the strength to power through it all. In the movie Kick Ass, released on June 7th 2010, Dave Lizewski is a teenage boy whose story exemplifies this idea perfectly. Lizewski was nothing more than a social misfit hiding from the brutality of high school in his world of comic books and superheroes. Living in an impoverish and crime filled city, he learns early on that, since he’s not a tough kid, the safest thing to do is be invisible and back down from any sort of trouble without asking questions.
Anthony Pines Kirsten Higgins English 101 1/23/13 Alexie’s Journey In His excerpt, “Superman and Me” Sherman Alexie tells the story of his childhood as a Native American living on a reservation. Alexie was one of the few Indians during that time that learned to read at a young age. Motivated by his father, who loved to read anything he could find, Alexie set out to do the same. His struggles during the time he was growing up are comparable to that of myself, not because I learned to read at an early age, because I went through similar struggles when I was young. “Superman and Me” offers a great perspective of what it is like to grow up in a place where everybody around expects very low intellectual intelligence.
When he entered into kindergarten he was advanced at reading while his classmates were struggling with simple books. Indian kids are smart, they struggled basic reading in class but can remember a dozen of powwow songs. They used simple words, but they could remember all the complex stories and jokes of their tribe. The other kids in his class did not like that Alexie was smart and that he answered all the questions the teacher would ask. So he was constantly in fights.
She tried to convince him that in the Indian culture, long hair is a sign for masculinity and balance but Wind-Wolf was too hard-headed to understand. Wind-Wolf’s father decided to take a stand so he wrote a letter to Wind-Wolf’s teacher and explained to her that Wind-Wolf was an intelligent boy. Wind-Wolf was not one of the kids that learned things from a textbook, he learned things through life. For the first five years of his life, he was surrounded by various religions including Protestant, Catholic, Asian Buddhist, and Tibetan Lamaist. He was also exposed to many sacred traditions, specifically the Indian traditions.
This reading by Malcolm X “A homemade Education” is about how Malcolm X learns to read and write. He dropped out of school and was later put in prison. In prison X was enlightened. When X first went to prison he could barely write or read. His writing was sloppy.
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.
Carasone 1 Sophia Carasone Mr. Sorey Literature and Composition 23 December 2011 Atticus’s Wisdom Atticus shares his wisdom to his children Jem and Scout continuously throughout the novel of “To Kill a Mockingbird”. The author, Harper Lee demonstrates that Atticus is an intelligent and inspirational to all the people around him especially his children. Scout and Jem struggle to understand one of the lessons given to them by Atticus. Atticus tries to teach them that someone can never truly know all there is to know someone, because there will always be more to learn. They fail several times to truly comprehend their father’s message.
09/05/2011 Superman and me essay Superman and me starts off with Alexis life as a small Indian boy who grew up on a impoverished Spokane Indian Reservation. Alexis was no ordinary Spokane Indian, he had an extraordinary mind. He thought himself how to read at the age of three by reading superman comics. Alexis then goes on to impress me even more as he teaches himself about paragraphs and how they relate to the real world. “The purpose of a paragraph.
I said to myself after reading the first three paragraphs that “what does Superman have to do with this essay?” I really enjoyed this essay because it will make you look at things a little different than what you probably already do. Reading this essay proves that anything is possible if you stay focused and set your mind to whatever it is that you want to do. Sherman Alexie explained how life was on the reservation that he had grown up on. He explained that there was a stereotype that by him being Indian that he would never amount to anything and they were to fail in the non-Indian world. They were told this for so long that majority of the kids that he had grew up with start to accept it.