(like a writer)
CONTENT WARNINGS: the following texts include representations of imprisonment and enslavement and related maltreatment and torture.
This week, I’ve asked you to read two more education narratives, Frederick Douglass’s “Chapter 7” from the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X’s “Learning to Read.” These both are also literacy narratives–they deal with learning to read. We also are re-reading Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” Book VII from The Republic.
After you read both of these education narratives, choose one moment that stands out to you. In your comment:
- include the passage that stood out to you and identify which text it comes from
- write a paragraph about what stands out to you about that passage
- write another paragraph in which you think about that passage through the lens that Plato offers us–that is, what does thinking about moving from being in the dark to coming into the light, or having false views and coming to realize truer truths, have to do with the passage you’ve chosen to write about.
- in another paragraph, write about what the passage is doing–that is, read it like a writer to see how it’s effective. What is this passage doing to develop the education narrative?
The passage that stood out to me was fredrick Douglas’ education narrative. This text comes from someone who years for education, and wants to achieve it but he really can’t because of he is a slave. Back then, if you were a slave caught with a book, you would’ve gotten in trouble. in the text it states how he had to be careful in reading his book, and every chance he got he read it. This shows his yearning for knowledge.
Moving from the dark relates to this topic in the text because it shows fredrick Douglas’ struggle to move away from the dark by trying to hold every piece of information he can get. Holding on to information and learning more about the world outside of the plantation shows is a example of him discovering new truth. When he read the books he is reading, the slaves disobeyed their owner, these actions in the book caused him to detest his enslavers.. This relates to how the cave man realized everything was different from the shadows he used to see in the cave.
This passage is trying to inform me about the life of the slave Fredrick Douglas’ The narrator Fredrick is trying to put us in his shoes so that we know how it felt to be restricted by the people who enslaved him. We also get a perspective of how his thirst for knowledge caused him to detest his enslavers, and open his eyes to a world filled with cruelty. By us readers being but into this perspective, we sympathize with him, since we have the opportunity for education while his is really barely limited. fredrick Douglas also heavily described how he felt in moments in the passage which gave us a peek at his mindset in the specific part of the story. The passage develops the education narrative by explaining how the situations in this part of his life changed him in his perception on the world. It also shows hints of how impactful these stages of his life were for him.
Thanks for getting our conversation started, Jeffrey!
You smartly compare Frederick Douglass’s experience learning to read with the freed prisoner realizing what the shadows were.
Are there particular moments in Douglass’s narrative that you can quote here to focus our conversation? There are many that we could discuss–which one or two stand out most to you?
one moment that I liked was how he describe the people changing around him, it shows how life has to go on sometimes
” The best thing I could do was get hold of a dictionary – to study, to learn some words. I was lucky enough to reason also that I should try to improve my penmanship. It was sad. I couldn’t even write in a straight line. It was both ideas together that moved me to request a dictionary along with some tablets and pencils from the Norfolk Prison Colony school. I spent two days just riffling uncertainly through the dictionary’s pages. I’d never realized so many words existed! I didn’t know which words I needed to learn. Finally, just to start some kind of action, I began copying”. – Learning to Read.
One thing that strikes me about this passage is the courage to learn despite having fewer resources than we have today. It’s inspiring to learn how he taught himself repeatedly without giving up. Curiosity was his guide to better education. This text tries to portray his hardships from the beginning and the steps he took to reach his objectives. The paragraph develops the educational narrative with an emotional and inspiring tone.
This text relates to “Allegory Of The Cave” in the sense that gaining education can help you see what is actually real. Malcolm was interested in learning everything he could about what was going on in history at the moment. As a result, he needed to learn to read and write first. His image got clearer when he achieved his aim. We can corroborate this knowledge with the prisoner who was able to exit the cave and see the outside world for the first time, giving him a genuine feeling of what was going on around him.
This passage is developed as an instructive narrative because it demonstrates the problem, what he struggled with, and how he eventually fixed it.