1. A smart Indian is considered a ” dangerous person, widely feared and ridiculed” because with knowledge you can conquer anything . Non-Indians would adopt this opinion because they expected the Indian children to be stupid . Therefore when you have a smart Indian it’s considered a threat in their eyes . Indian children would adopt to this self-defending idea because it benefits them . They’ll have more self confident and knowledge when it comes to non-Indians trying to suppress them .
2. What the author means in paragraph 7 by ” I was trying to save my life” is that by learning to read he was then able to learn more and go beyond the expectations of what non-Indians had . They expected Indians to be stupid and by learning to read he broke those boundaries because being educated can be powerful. With this point is he emphasizing the importance of reading books and educating oneself .
3. The outward support that a person needs to break free of stereotypes and dead ends and forge a path to success. Is to have a influential background, in this case the authors father was his biggest influencer . His father, who attended college and was a big collector of books from different genres helped the author become the reader he was .
4. The metaphor that the author uses in paragraph 3, ” a paragraph was a fence that held worlds.” Did in fact help me understand what the purpose of a paragraph was. It helped because the metaphor created a visual in my head of what a paragraph is . I would explain the purpose of the paragraph as a structure that holds sentences together but that have to do with some specific idea that adds organization .