Category: Coffeehouse #1 (Page 1 of 2)

“Where I Learn To Read” by Salvatore Scibona, it was publish in the New Yorkers on June 13 and 20th 2011. It talks about how he’s struggle with his teenage time as a high school student and a KFC worker whose wage was $3.85 an hour. He even wanted to drop out of high school so he can relieve some stress because he thinks his job is more important than his education at that time. He was inspired by a brochure his classmate threw to him, it was about how college was like. He then found his intellectual home at St. John college. But before that he had started to read a lot of books such as Donald Trump autobiography. He wasn’t forced to do the stuff, he knew his parents can’t afford him to go to college, but he felt himself more comfortable in the college than the his home, that’s why St. John college is his intellectual home.

“Where I Learned To Read” was written by a fellow New Yorker named Salvatore Scibona in the summer time of June 11th and June 13th of 2011. It is based on a person who had zero motivation to finish his years of high school, and would rather work at KFC making a beginners wage of $3.85 instead of carrying on his studies to get a higher paying job. Scibona tried flunking out of high school in his 3rd year. He failed most of classes and even went to the extent of burning his report card in the sink of KFC. He was unable to read, but he tried putting his effort into reading books that he found amusing and wouldn’t just be assigned to read. Then came his senior year and thats when everything changed.

Scibona went on in his senior year and was passed a brochure for college by his classmate. Glancing at the brochure it had immediately caught his attention since the college had nothing to do with grades, textbooks, or even tests. Being a senior in high school this of course would catch the attention of any student, but even though it caught Scibona’s it still made him out to be confused. Now this is where things start to take a turn for the better. As stated Scibona wanted to leave Ohio, and now he was getting that opportunity. The college named St. John College was located in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Realizing this gave motivation to Scibona to graduate high school and make it into college. St. John College is where Scibona learnt to read and excelled in his studies. Scibona’s intellectual home turnt out to be St. John College. In the end Scibona’s motivation to leave Ohio also helped him to have a better future making become a renown author.

“When I Learned to Read” by Salvatore Scibona it was published in The New Yorker on June 13th and 20th 2011, its talks about how he struggled with his high school in his teenage age. How hard was the school for him He failed all of his classes. he works hard to flunk out of high school but he doesn’t know what he was reading and he didn’t know how to read. and he burned the report card in the KFC where he was working. He burned the report card because he failed all of his class .he loved working at KFC. He was saving money for his future.
Sometimes he breaks the addiction to the tube. and he spent the night in a derelict shed with mushrooms He hates reading. He just swings his eyes on the pages of the library books. because of the girl, he loved with the movie “Reading messed with my brain in an unaccountable it made me happy” 

He found his intellectual home at St.John’s college. A college where he was able to join in and it was too far from his hometown It was fifteen hundred miles from home. But he was happy to let him in And he made new friends he can meet new people, He wasn’t forced to read; there were no textbooks, no quizzes, no tests. Even though his parents couldn’t afford it he made it his mission to get there and be able to go somewhere where he felt comfortable.
“I feel like a vacation” this quote means  Salvatore trying to say he felt free he doesn’t have to read. He doesn’t have to take the test or quizzes “Reader. I married it.”The author tries to understand the Reader when he breaks out the door. Everything changes his life.

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. 

“When I Learned to Read” by Salvatore Scibona was published in The New Yorker on June 13th and 20th 2011, and it talks bout Scibona struggling throughout his teenage years. In high school Scibona found himself lost and in a slump academically, despite having an interest for reading. He was able to use this interest as a path to land himself in his “intellectual home” that improved his overall self. Scibona mentions escaping the addiction of watching too much t.v by going into a backyard shed to read or at least he attempted to. He describes not really knowing what he was doing but still came away with a sense of happiness. Which is supported in paragraph three where it states,”I didn’t really know how to read. Reading messed with my brain in an unaccountable way. It made me happy”. His senior year of highs school he would discover the place “St. Johns College” where he found his “intellectual home”. From the time Scibona read and looked at the brochure to St. Johns he knew this was the place he needed to to be. The text states,” I would scrap everything and go to that place and ask them to let me in. It felt like a vocation. It was a vocation.” This further proves that St. Johns was the authors “intellectual home” and the best place suited for him. By Scibona senior year at college he grew used to reading and it no longer felt like a difficult task. Along his years he was surprised he was able to form friendships throughout his time. This was a major improvement from his high school years and probably could not have happened if he had not found his “intellectual home”at St Johns College. The author concludes by going back to his teenage hardships and how his life was going in the wrong direction. Until he was able to use his interest in reading to get into college where he reinvested himself and changed his life.

Dawson Lockhart

              The article “When I learned to read” by Salvatore Scibona which is published in The New Yorker, June 13&20,2011. He talks about how difficult school was for him. He would do thinks like purposely failing his classes and burning his report cards at his job at KFC. He loved his job as much as the way dog loves a carcass in ditch”. His job was more important than his school to him.

Back-yard rehab” is something Salvatore do where he would go to his backyard and read books such as Donald trump autobiography and leaves of grass and more, and he would actually enjoy reading books in his free time. Even though he enjoyed reading it in his backyard it was for him to actually read them where he was assigned them at school.

His intellectual home was found at St. John’s college. A college where he was able to fit in and meet new people, make mew friends in  which he had so much fun. H wasn’t forced to read there was no textbooks or quizzes or tests. Even though his parents could t afford it he made it his mission to get there and be able to go somewhere where he felt comfortable .

Intellectual Home

In the article “Where I learned to read” by Salvatore Scibona published in New York, on June 13 & 20, 2011. Scibona started off by telling us how hard school was for him and how he was failing all his classes. He worked at kfc so he could make money and save for the future, while he was working at kfc he burned his report card in the sink where he worked scraping carbonized grease from the pressure cooker. One thing he wanted was to get out of Ohio. 

He says  his house is very crowded and how the tv was always blasting. And he had no peace at home. Salvatore did not like to read, he spent his nights in the derelict shed “swinging his eyes over the pages of library books”. He didn’t really know how to read but it made him happy. 

In college he met a girl that gave him a brochure, “ the college curriculum was outrageous”. 

This was the moment his life changed, St. John’s college was his dream college”no grades, no electives, not a single book, no textbooks”. He finally found his dream school and would do anything to pursue it. 

His dream finally came true, he started to learn how to read French, he started solving math equations. He was getting a different aspect of life. This was something he dreamed about and he finally overcame his loneliness. 

In conclusion, Salvatore’s life was a bumpy ride, he went from not having a quiet place to read and write to finding a place where he loved. His past was very harsh. He was a “sad little boy” until he went off to college where he found his intellectual home a place he could actually call home. A place he was comfortable in. “ Every year since has been more intense and enigmatic joy” he found a place he called home. 

An intellectual home is an intimate place, meant for one person (or more if preferred) to create and find peace and comfort to achieve their best academic work. It is crafted from the personal mind and heart to bring ideas to life for a better experience while studying. Salvatore Scibona wrote a short story called ” Where I learned To Read” , published by The New Yorker magazine on June 13 & 20, 2011. He lets us dive back in his life to inform us of how his life changed before some struggles he faced. Scibona always had the TV on all day and described it as it was “singing like a siren in the crowded house” (paragraph 2). According to Scibona, reading is very important for him to do, even though he couldn’t understand it nor correctly know how to read being in the 11th grade. But it made him happy. He even copied out the first paragraph of a book by Annie Dillard on his bedroom’s dormer wall. Reading took part in his inspiration in life. He seems to have been a very simple and stress less kind of person. This can be proven when he is given a college brochure by one of her classmates. That brochure gave the information needed for Scibona to be interested in his education and future college. There were no electives, no tests, no grades, and even no textbooks. Such an attractive college for his interests. That college was St. John’s College. It interested him so much that he would scrap all his plans just to attend that college, considering it a vocation. That simple brochure was a life-changing moment for his life and upcoming future. He spoils into his future and is now in St. John’s. During his senior year, he made hanging out with his friends on the weekends part of his schedule. This is very understandable as having a social life is very impactful for many if not all of us. He even had drinks with them. Therefore, Scibona’s intellectual home is all about being picky and simple for himself. But being lazy, egotistical, and a dejected teen-ager were all part of this as well. Having what can be considered as lonerist traits. It was all as easy as learning how to read that took him to be successful.

Salvatore Scibona had written a short story called, “Where I Learned to Read” which was published by The New Yorker on June, 13 & 20th, 2011. The short story is about how Salvatore Scibona at first felt his school life was becoming nothing but a failure and didn’t fully understand how he worked hard only for his job, but when it came to doing assignments such as reading he would struggle to read a page. The strange thing is that Salvatore would go to his backyard and read books such as Leaves of Grass and etc, and he would actually enjoy reading books in his free time but just couldn’t read them when they were assigned to him. At the end of high school, Salvatore felt like he didn’t know what was next for him in life, and he was given a second chance to fix his bad habits and become a successful student, by attending St. John’s college. The school seems to fit him so well; he even described the school as a “vocation”. Salvatore ended up finding his intellectual home, which also means a place where he would learn best at. This is determined because the summer before school started Salvatore was told to read various books and genres that he had probably never read or heard of, such as the Iliad, or even memorizing greek letters, and etc. Salvatore had written “Reader, I married it.” which meant that he had broken the door that he felt was holding him back from reading more assigned books and shows how much of a better student Salvatore had become. He still worked hard at his job but made it a goal to read every night after work, and this ultimately explains how much he had changed as a person or a reader and all it took was him to be in his intellectual home. Salvatore’s senior year in college was totally different from his senior year in high school, he had gone from failing all his classes by not doing the assignment or reading any of the books in high school to in college making reading more of a thrill rather than drag. In conclusion, the author emphasizes how much he had changed from high school to college and how college was more of his intellectual home because of the way Salvatore had become more of a reader than before and cared more about school assignment way more than before, and it just seemed that he worked best at St. John’s college which can be seen in his passionate love for reading now.

In the essay “where I learn to read” written by Salvatore Scibona published in The New York, June 13 and 20, 2011, he first draws the reader in by describing what his life was like in school. He explains how frustrating it was for him when he states: “I failed English literature, American literature, Spanish, precalculus, chemistry, physics. Once, in a fit of melancholic vanity, I burned my report card in the sink of the KFC where I worked scraping carbonized grease from the pressure cookers.” That not only explains his frustration but also uses imagery to show how unhappy he was with his performance in school. In the essay, it seems as though he felt stuck with no way out as if his future was already determined.

Salvatore, later on, talks about his way of escape, or as he called it “Back-yard rehab” which is where he would sit in his back yard and read as a way to escape the real world, despite everything reading made him happy. He stated “As long as nobody had assigned the book, I could stick with it. I didn’t know what I was reading. I didn’t really know how to read. Reading messed with my brain in an unaccountable way. It made me happy; or something.” This is then later on shown when he receives a brochure from a girl that’s brochure was from St.John college and claimed in the school there were no textbooks, no grades or tests. It was a school where you just read and learn through books Which fit him perfectly he was excited. But knew that he couldn’t afford it. But he wouldn’t let that stop him. 

After getting into college he was discovering new things, meeting new people, and being able to do something he loved, read books. After entering that college he found his intellectual home, a place that changed him for the better good. A place that seems so far but wasn’t impossible to get to.