Salvatore Scibona’s “Where I Learn to Read” posted by the New Yorker from June 13 & 20 2011 captures Scibona’s personal views and experiences about school, alongside him going through an almost heroic paradigm when as he finds his intellectual home. The first sentence of Scibona’s story starts off with “I did my best to flunk out of high school. I failed English literature, American literature, Spanish, precalculus, chemistry, physics.” to draw readers into his story, Scibona is giving them a glimpse of his past self and his want to fail. He ended the first paragraph with his one goal “I was saving for the future” he wanted to get out of the Ohio environment and current mentality he was in. Scibona’s heroic journey is very intimate; his journey begins when he finds himself in a threshold state, a shed reading books out of his interest to give meaning to himself. As the story continues he battles with his thoughts as an opportunity causes him to submit to an abyss of revelation, going to St. John’s; transforming his views on education due to his readings on the overall basics and beginnings of each subject. The college was his “vocation” after psychically changing his ways Scibona realizes that reading is his calling, it made him mentally accept that this is for him. An intellectual home is where one studies the best, Scibona’s intellectual home found him; he encourages the readers that everyone has an intellectual home despite current circumstances or hopelessness. His purpose of the article outshines his heroic journey, giving readers inspiration by sharing his truth. Ending the article with “In retrospect, I was a sad little boy and a standard-issue, shiftless, egotistical, dejected teen-ager. Everything was going to hell, and then these strangers let me come to their school and showed me how to read.” concludes his heroic journey, intellectual home, and final thoughts on education. Scibona’s shifting article with rhetoric examples emphasizes the importance of having an intellectual home to allow one to grow and prosper, while displaying how everyone has a calling when it comes to life even with past struggles.
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Hi Rachel,
I really liked your post, especially the focus on particular words and the concluding sentiment.
-Prof. Scanlan
Hello Rachel
Rachel You really did good job showing us Salvatore Scibona’s story by using so much little detail fact from the article and explaining Salvatore story by your own words like how he failed all of his classes, how disappointed he was with life. Nice job explaining environment from the part that he wants to leave Ohaio to move somewhere else, thats amazing how everything changes when he transfers to St.Johns collage, when he starts reading, his looking at view changes and when you explaining that he found his intellectual home far away were he born.The end when Salvatore is saying negative ways about him self, I liked part when you use quotations by quoting in Salvatore words. You showed reader very well what was the article really about.
Sincerely Giorgi G
I really enjoyed reading this summary, it was well put together, awesome vocabulary and wordplay. The introduction did a great job drawing me in and you continued to captivate me throughout the summary. I especially love how you took some of the authors phrases and put it in there, giving me insight on what you thought and translating to what they might mean. You talked about his journey, the shed and his epiphany, find St. Johns. You gave the meaning of an intellectual home and the inspiration Scibona spread through finding his. This summary really captured all parts of the article. Really good job.