Superman and Me Sherman Alexie Group A
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Superman and Me Sherman Alexie
- I learned to read with a Superman comic book. Simple enough, I suppose. I cannot recall which particular Superman comic book I read, nor can I remember which villain he fought in that issue. I cannot remember the plot, nor the means by which I obtained the comic book. What I can remember is this: I was 3 years old, a Spokane Indian boy living with his family on the Spokane Indian Reservation in eastern Washington state. We were poor by most standards, but one of my parents usually managed to find some minimum-wage job or another, which made us middle-class by reservation standards. I had a brother and three sisters. We lived on a combination of irregular paychecks, hope, fear and government surplus food.
Alexie Sherman added these examples of the hardships he faced as a child not for pity, but to inspire his readers to take their adversities and make something out of them. He used syntax to do so as usually in a paragraph, a thesis statement occurs at the beginning, examples in the middle support the thesis, and a conclusion statement wraps it up. However, Sherman didn’t follow this common writing structure because he wanted his readers to know that it was because of these hardships that he fought so hard for his education and knowledge. He is leaving us with inspiration to use our own adversities in life as reasoning to fight for our lives and success.
- My father, who is one of the few Indians who went to Catholic school on purpose, was an avid reader of westerns, spy thrillers, murder mysteries, gangster epics, basketball player biographies and anything else he could find. He bought his books by the pound at Dutch's Pawn Shop, Goodwill, Salvation Army and Value Village. When he had extra money, he bought new novels at supermarkets, convenience stores and hospital gift shops. Our house was filled with books. They were stacked in crazy piles in the bathroom, bedrooms and living room. In a fit of unemployment-inspired creative energy, my father built a set of bookshelves and soon filled them with a random assortment of books about the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, the Vietnam War and the entire 23-book series of the Apache westerns. My father loved books, and since I loved my father with an aching devotion, I decided to love books as well.
he talks about his father and how his father loves to read. and how his father loves all kinds of books any books he can find he buys and reads them
The types of literature that are listed in this sentence are usually viewed as recreational forms of reading. In a typical English class, students are required to read long novels that introduce them to mature and complex ideas, therefore enriching and expanding their minds. Spy thrillers, gangster epics, and the others are simply for the enjoyment of reading. However, Sherman’s diction was intentional as he is expressing to the reader how his family made due with what they had. They didn’t have the money to buy classic novels read by scholars. This word choice reveals to readers that Sherman used what he had to best educate himself,and he did just that!
- I can remember picking up my father's books before I could read. The words themselves were mostly foreign, but 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. The words inside a paragraph worked together for a common purpose. They had some specific reason for being inside the same fence. This knowledge delighted me. I began to think of everything in terms of paragraphs. Our reservation was a small paragraph within the United States. My family's house was a paragraph, distinct from the other paragraphs of the LeBrets to the north, the Fords to our south and the Tribal School to the west. Inside our house, each family member existed as a separate paragraph but still had genetics and common experiences to link us. Now, using this logic, I can see my changed family as an essay of seven paragraphs: mother, father, older brother, the deceased sister, my younger twin sisters and our adopted little brother.
Note, the sentence is in the middle of the paragraph. I believe this is where Alexie’s reading journey began.
This sentence is the shortest sentence in the paragraph because it gave him comfort. For his whole life, he had been trapped on the reservation and he had no idea why or even if there was a reason. The thought that he could be closed off in a pen for no reason upset him as it would anyone else. His new knowledge that sentences were in a paragraph for a reason gave him immense comfort that there was a reason for him being on a reservation, even though the reason isn’t just. It made him feel like his life still had meaning and people didn’t throw him in a cage just because.
he says he didn’t have the vocabulary to say paragraph he talks about a paragraph being a fence that held words and the words inside worked for a common goal then he thinks of everything as a paragraph as calls his reservation a paragraph and compares the two of them like the words working for a common purpose the people in the reservation are working for a common purpose
- At the same time I was seeing the world in paragraphs, I also picked up that Superman comic book. Each panel, complete with picture, dialogue and narrative was a three-dimensional paragraph. In one panel, Superman breaks through a door. His suit is red, blue and yellow. The brown door shatters into many pieces. I look at the narrative above the picture. I cannot read the words, but I assume it tells me that "Superman is breaking down the door." Aloud, I pretend to read the words and say, "Superman is breaking down the door." Words, dialogue, also float out of Superman's mouth. Because he is breaking down the door, I assume he says, "I am breaking down the door." Once again, I pretend to read the words and say aloud, "I am breaking down the door" In this way, I learned to read.
alexie connects shatters with breaking down the door,because it shows how the wordsare an important part of the paragraph.
in the last few sentences he describes to the readers how he learned to read from his comic. he talks about how he looked at the picture and superman was breaking down the door. and after pretending to read the words and doing that in that way he slowly learned to read.
- This might be an interesting story all by itself. A little Indian boy teaches himself to read at an early age and advances quickly. He reads "Grapes of Wrath" in kindergarten when other children are struggling through "Dick and Jane." If he'd been anything but an Indian boy living on the reservation, he might have been called a prodigy. But he is an Indian boy living on the reservation and is simply an oddity. He grows into a man who often speaks of his childhood in the third-person, as if it will somehow dull the pain and make him sound more modest about his talents.
Throughout the entire paragraph, Alexie is attempting to create an argument through his narrative. This argument being that because he is not white, he is not important. This is accomplished through the use of the word “might” at the beginning, setting up that something is wrong. He then repeats twice the idea that he is a “little Indain boy”, and then in sentences three and four of this paragraph, he directly addresses this might, pointing out that he is an oddity. The modesty found throughout the paragraph also supports this idea that he’s not important.
In this paragraph Alexie is simply constructing a narrative of an Indian boy who taught himself to read, and how he was far ahead of even the non-Indians in the class. He talks about how it should have been incredible, and then reveals that it’s simply a strange anomaly. He then closes the narrative by revealing that the little Indian boy is just himself, creating an auto-biographical story.
- A smart Indian is a dangerous person, widely feared and ridiculed by Indians and non-Indians alike. I fought with my classmates on a daily basis. They wanted me to stay quiet when the non-Indian teacher asked for answers, for volunteers, for help. We were Indian children who were expected to be stupid. Most lived up to those expectations inside the classroom but subverted them on the outside. They struggled with basic reading in school but could remember how to sing a few dozen powwow songs. They were monosyllabic in front of their non-Indian teachers but could tell complicated stories and jokes at the dinner table. They submissively ducked their heads when confronted by a non-Indian adult but would slug it out with the Indian bully who was 10 years older. As Indian children, we were expected to fail in the non-Indian world. Those who failed were ceremonially accepted by other Indians and appropriately pitied by non-Indians.
- I refused to fail. I was smart. I was arrogant. I was lucky. I read books late into the night, until I could barely keep my eyes open. I read books at recess, then during lunch, and in the few minutes left after I had finished my classroom assignments. I read books in the car when my family traveled to powwows or basketball games. In shopping malls, I ran to the bookstores and read bits and pieces of as many books as I could. I read the books my father brought home from the pawnshops and secondhand. I read the books I borrowed from the library. I read the backs of cereal boxes. I read the newspaper. I read the bulletins posted on the walls of the school, the clinic, the tribal offices, the post office. I read junk mail. I read auto-repair manuals. I read magazines. I read anything that had words and paragraphs. I read with equal parts joy and desperation. I loved those books, but I also knew that love had only one purpose. I was trying to save my life.
- Despite all the books I read, I am still surprised I became a writer. I was going to be a pediatrician. These days, I write novels, short stories, and poems. I visit schools and teach creative writing to Indian kids. In all my years in the reservation school system, I was never taught how to write poetry, short stories or novels. I was certainly never taught that Indians wrote poetry, short stories and novels. Writing was something beyond Indians. I cannot recall a single time that a guest teacher visited the reservation. There must have been visiting teachers. Who were they? Where are they now? Do they exist? I visit the schools as often as possible. The Indian kids crowd the classroom. Many are writing their own poems, short stories and novels. They have read my books. They have read many other books. They look at me with bright eyes and arrogant wonder. They are trying to save their lives. Then there are the sullen and already defeated Indian kids who sit in the back rows and ignore me with theatrical precision. The pages of their notebooks are empty. They carry neither pencil nor pen. They stare out the window. They refuse and resist. "Books," I say to them. "Books," I say. I throw my weight against their locked doors. The door holds. I am smart. I am arrogant. I am lucky. I am trying to save our lives.
This repeated in paragraph 7 at the beginning of the paragraph, and ended the last paragraph. Which is the end of the essay.
In this part of the paragraph he is speak about his self, he is surprised he is writer and he always read. Telling how he didn’t get taught poetry but he didn’t get taught to read either.
He says he will not fail because he is determined and has faith in his self. He is a Indian and his country and people are viewed ask dumb. since he taught his self to read and write and as a little boy he read all the time and was outstandingly smart as a kid. He is not doing it for his self he is doing it for his people to show Indians can be smart too.
I say separation and segregating because he is Indian they do not want him to volunteer because they think he doesn’t know the material.
why just because he is Indian it would be an interesting story. if any little kid teaching themselves to read the would be interesting to me. This shows the segregation that is going on.
This goes with the quick write we did at beginning of class,
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