Shelby K. Evans
11/23/09
Learning Experience
Learning is defined as acquiring new knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, preferences or understanding, and may involve synthesizing different types of information. Everyone at some point in their life experiences learning in some shape or form. For most people learning begins at an early age and does not ever stop. In present time, the majority of people do not actually have to work to become educated (it is required due to legal obligations) but in past times, the learning process was a privilege.
This occurs often in the stories we read. Also, in some cases people were educated but according to the
“status quo” those people would never have a successful life. The stories I believe illustrate these previous statements extremely well are as followed: “Learning to Read” by Malcolm X; “Learning to
Read and Write” by Fredrick Douglass; and “Graduation” by Maya Angelou. In all of these selections, the characters undergo a learning process.
“Learning to Read” is about the learning process in which Malcolm X taught himself to read and somewhat write while in prison. In this story, Malcolm X speaks of his ways of learning to read and write but I do not believe it was as simple as it appears to the eye. Malcolm X fought through a great deal of situations using knowledge. His process of gaining knowledge started off in a very unusual manner. When I was learning how to read and write, I started by learning the letters of my name. Then after that, I began learning the other letters so I could then go on to recognizing words.
Once I could do that, I was able to read small books. When Malcolm X began he opened the dictionary and copied down all the words under the letter “A” and once he finished that he would read them aloud to hear the word. While completing a physical and mental learning process, Malcolm encounters another learning process I believe is emotional. This was not his original intentions I do believe, but as he was learning to read he also learned about African American history. The learning process in the selection reveals a comparison that directly relates to “Learning to Read and Write” by Fredrick

Shelby K. Evans
11/23/09
Douglass.
In “Learning to Read and Write” the learning process Douglass goes through is very complex.
He learns through a series of ways of how to read and write. First he trades bread with poor boys for knowledge. Then when he begins to write he observes the ship carpenters and watches the letters they write on the timber. Once he learned four letters, he tricked the other children into writing letters so he could learn more letters. In this selection the learning process that occurs was more than just reading and writing, it was a life learning process. He not only learned “book” knowledge, he learned how to use what he could to his advantage and was able to go through everyday life like that. This is the total opposite of what Maya Angelou went through.
In “Graduation” Angelou’s learning process was the knowledge of realization. She had worked so hard to be the best and one man changed that all for her. Maya is telling the story of her graduation that she had waited so long for. While she was sitting there waiting to receive her diploma, a speaker was on the stage and gave a speech basically stating that none of her peers or her would ever make it in the real world unless the were spectacular at athletics. In this selection, the learning process was
Angelou realizing that even though she worked so hard, the “status quo” was still in effect. This to me was more of personal insight because it was emotional learning instead of an actual educational journey.
All of these stories in some way or another illustrate a learning process. It may not be an educational learning process as in “Learning to Read” and “Learning to Read and Write” it could be personal insight as in “Graduation”. I will treat my entire life as a learning process; each day I will attain more knowledge than I had the day before what matters, is how we use our knowledge.