Malcolm X and Alexie Reading Response

Before You Read

Alexie 3. When I was learning to read the texts and events central to my learning were from kindergarten. I learned how to read during kindergarten and the first books I read were from my class room.

Dialectical Notebook for Malcolm X

Response	Quotation
I like this quote because many people can relate and it starts the autobiography off with where he first started to really learn English.	“The impression is due entirely to my prison studies” (354).
I like the emphasis he puts on understand in the quote. It is showing how proud he was of himself.	“No university would ask their student to devour literature as I did when this new world opened to me, of being able to read and understand” (356).
This is a good example. It shows that you should put your background into what you’re actually talking about while writing.	“Often in the years in the streets I had slept less than that” (354).
I picked this quote because I thought it was nice that he described the books he was reading. He put his opinion into the text.	“The world’s most monstrous crime, the sin and the blood on the white man’s hands, are almost impossible to believe” (357).
This shows the thanks Malcolm had to Mr. Muhammad. It is also nice that he broke away from the learning’s he had to put this.	“Mr. Muhammad, to whom I was writing daily, had no idea of what a new world had opened up to me through my efforts to document his teachings in books” (359).
This quote shows that he goes back to where he first learned about books. He doesn’t take it for granted.	“I told the Englishman that my alma mater was books, a good library” (360).

Dialectical Notebook for Alexie

Response	Quotation
This starts at the very beginning. Simple.	“I learned to read with a Superman comic book” (363).
This quote is bringing me in, almost making it emotional.	“I still remember the exact moment when I first understood, with a sudden clarity, the purpose of the paragraph” (363).
He is explaining his thought process about the paragraph. Explanation is good.	“They had some specific reason from being inside the same fence” (364).
He is bringing us into his personal past, childhood.	“As Indian children, we were expected to fail in the non-Indian world” (364).
He is expressing to the reader how important this was to him.	“I read anything that had words and paragraphs” (365).
This is a bold statement and last line. He is putting himself out there.	“I am trying to save our lives” (365).