Malcolm and Alexie

Bell, Malcolm X, Alexie

Before you read

After doing research on Malcolm X and his biography, i learned he was born Malcolm Little in 1925.  He was a Muslim minister and a human rights activist.  He was married to a woman named Betty and they had 6 children together.  He was the ambassador of the Nation of Islam and traveled to many places.

 

 

Response	Quotation
All of the books he picked up just looked like they were all written in Chinese which was very frustrating to him.	“But every book I picked up had few sentences which didn’t contain anywhere from one to nearly all of the words that might as well have been in Chinese.” (354)
He ends up loving reading after he starts to understand what all the words mean.  He begins to read more serious text and can’t put it down.	“When I had progressed to really serious reading, every night at about ten P.M. I would be outraged with the “lights out”.  It always seemed to catch me right in the middle of something engrossing.” (356)
It made such an impact on him and couldn’t believe what a monstrous crime it was.	“I never will forget how shocked I was when I began reading about slavery’s total horror.” (357)
When picking up his fathers books before he could read he remembers looking at the paragraphs and thinking that they were there to explain a purpose.	“I still remember the exact moment when I first understood, with a sudden clarity, the purpose of a paragraph.  I didn’t have the vocabulary to say “paragraph,” but I realized that a paragraph was a fence that held words.” (363)
Talks about reading “The Grapes of Wrath” when all the other children are struggling to read much more simple books.  Just shows how advance he was.	“A little Indian boy teaches himself to read at an early age and advances quickly.” (364)
He had no intentions of becoming a writer.  It wasn’t the plan.  He was supposed to be a pediatrician and now all he does is write.	“Despite all the books I read, I am still surprised I became a writer.” (365)