Reading Response to Malcolm X – Jemel Thomas

Part A:  

Part B: 

“I was so fascinated that I went on–I copied the dictionary’s next page. And the same experience came when I studied that. With every succeeding page, I also learned of people and places and events from history. Actually the dictionary is like a miniature encyclopedia. Finally the dictionary’s A section had filled a whole tablet–and I went on into the B’s. That was the way I started copying what eventually became the entire dictionary. It went a lot faster after so much practice helped me to pick up handwriting speed. Between what I wrote in my tablet, and writing letters, during the rest of my time in prison I would guess I wrote a million words.” 

Malcolm X was interested in learning how to read and write in order to strengthen his understanding in different literature’s. He studied and wrote down words he wanted to learn, which was every word their were in his dictionary. By receiving so much information from reading his dictionary/encyclopedia, he was able to piece together data of different parts of history, learn about events and even important people. Also, the speed at which he was able to write increased which gave him the ability to write more in his writing tablet, and possibly contributed to his letter writing. Prison was more like a blessing rather than an unfortunate event in Malcolm’s life.