Power of Process Assignment Title: Close Reading Practice: Sherman Alexie's Superman and

Me

Pontea Doroudian

My Annotations

Identify Story Elements : Identify and highlight THREE excerpts where Alexie uses one of the story elements we've been
practicing with this quarter: setting, characterization, or dialogue (including internal monologue). In
the annotation for each, describe which type of story element is being used.

I was 3 years old, a Spokane Indian boy living with his family on the Spokane Indian Reservation in
eastern Washington state

The story element he uses here is setting. He states how old he was (past) and where the setting is
placed (Washington).

My father, who is one of the few Indians who went to Catholic school on purpose, was an avid reader of
westerns, spy thrillers, murder mysteries, gangster epics, basketball player biographies and anything
else he could find

Alexie uses characterization - describing his father by listing what he enjoys.

Now, using this logic, I can see my changed family as an essay of seven paragraphs: mother, father,
older brother, the deceased sister, my younger twin sisters and our adopted little brother.

Here, Alexie is using internal dialogue. We can tell because he speaks using the word "I".

Identify Stylistic Elements : Identify and highlight THREE excerpts where Alexie effectively uses one of the stylistic elements
we've been practicing with this quarter (parentheses, long-short-long, lists, repetition with a purpose,
etc). In the annotation for each, describe which type of style is used and why you think it's effective.

I refused to fail. I was smart. I was arrogant. I was lucky.

Here, he uses repetition with purpose. He repeats the sentence structure, tense, and noun. It is
very effective because it create a flow to his work.

Despite all the books I read, I am still surprised I became a writer. I was going to be a pediatrician.
These days, I write novels, short stories, and poems.

This is an example of a long-short-long stylistic element. It is an effective sentence since he

mentions what he currently does and then briefly states what he wanted to be. In the third sentence,
he goes back the the first second subject of him as a writer.

I read the books my father brought home from the pawnshops and secondhand. I read the books I
borrowed from the library. I read the backs of cereal boxes. I read the newspaper. I read the bulletins
posted on the walls of the school, the clinic, the tribal offices, the post office. I read junk mail. I read
auto-repair manuals. I read magazines. I read anything that had words and paragraphs. I read with
equal parts joy and desperation.

He uses the stylistic element of listing. It is effective because he lists out what he reads formally by
listing them out with full sentences instead of actual bullet points.

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Identify So What? : Highlight TWO excerpts that help to communicate Alexie's answer to "So What?" -- why is this
memory/memoir important, and why should we be interested? In the annotations, summarize what
you think how the excerpt answers "so what?"

A little Indian boy teaches himself to read at an early age and advances quickly.

In this short story Alexie describes his life as an Indian boy and how writing and reading shaped his
life into what it is today. Just as he describes his perspective on "paragraphs", he organizes his
story into "paragraphs" of his life of his improvements in literacy. The first one is describing how he
was a prodigy as a little boy.

I visit schools and teach creative writing to Indian kids

This is his last story, describing his road in advancing in his literacy. He is so good at reading and
writing, that he is teaching a class full of Indians. As he guides the reader through his path to
excellent literacy, he proves that he smart, arrogant, and lucky.

My Responses

Look up author : To continue our practice of knowing something about the writer we're reading, look up Sherman
Alexie and write 1-2 sentences about him.

Sherman Alexie is a Native American poet, novelist, performer and filmmaker. His more prominent
wiriting discussed the lives of American Indians.

Analyze your process : Below is a display of the Power of Process circle and a list that details the order in which you
completed the process. Why did you decide to visit the reading strategies in this order? How did
your strategy decisions help you understand and think about the text? Which strategies helped you
most? What strategies will you use the next time you read a text?

This was the same order I have done with all my previous assignments which is why I decided to do it
this time. This order is the most effective because it starts off with specific question and towards more
general and "big picture" questions. I will continue to use this strategy since it has proven to be the most
effective order for me.

What is the Argument? : If you thought of this memoir as an argument--it's making a claim/arguing for a specific idea--how
would you summarize that argument?

Alexie describes his journey to excellent literacy to prove that the stereotype that Native Americans
aren't intelligent enough is completely false. He does this both directly (by stating that he is smart) and
indirectly through his journey.

Superman and Me, by Sherman Alexie

I learned to read with a Superman comic book. Simple enough, I suppose. I

cannot recall which particular Superman comic book I read, nor can I
remember which villain he fought in that issue. I cannot remember the plot,
nor the means by which I obtained the comic book. What I can remember is
this: I was 3 years old, a Spokane Indian boy living with his family on the
Spokane Indian Reservation in eastern Washington state. We were poor by
most standards, but one of my parents usually managed to find some
minimum-wage job or another, which made us middle-class by reservation
standards. I had a brother and three sisters. We lived on a combination of
irregular paychecks, hope, fear and government surplus food.

My father, who is one of the few Indians who went to Catholic school on
purpose, was an avid reader of westerns, spy thrillers, murder mysteries,

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gangster epics, basketball player biographies and anything else he could
find. He bought his books by the pound at Dutch's Pawn Shop, Goodwill,
Salvation Army and Value Village. When he had extra money, he bought new
novels at supermarkets, convenience stores and hospital gift shops. Our
house was filled with books. They were stacked in crazy piles in the
bathroom, bedrooms and living room. In a fit of unemployment-inspired
creative energy, my father built a set of bookshelves and soon filled them
with a random assortment of books about the Kennedy assassination,
Watergate, the Vietnam War and the entire 23-book series of the Apache
westerns. My father loved books, and since I loved my father with an aching
devotion, I decided to love books as well.

I can remember picking up my father's books before I could read. The words
themselves were mostly foreign, but I still remember the exact
moment when I first understood, with a sudden clarity, the purpose of a
paragraph. I didn't have the vocabulary to say "paragraph," but I realized that
a paragraph was a fence that held words. The words inside a paragraph
worked together for a common purpose. They had some specific reason for
being inside the same fence. This knowledge delighted me. I began to think
of everything in terms of paragraphs. Our reservation was a small paragraph
within the United States. My family's house was a paragraph, distinct from
the other paragraphs of the LeBrets to the north, the Fords to our south and
the Tribal School to the west. Inside our house, each family member existed
as a separate paragraph but still had genetics and common experiences to
link us. Now, using this logic, I can see my changed family as an essay of
seven paragraphs: mother, father, older brother, the deceased sister, my
younger twin sisters and our adopted little brother.

At the same time I was seeing the world in paragraphs, I also picked up that
Superman comic book. Each panel, complete with picture, dialogue and
narrative was a three-dimensional paragraph. In one panel, Superman
breaks through a door. His suit is red, blue and yellow. The brown door
shatters into many pieces. I look at the narrative above the picture. I cannot
read the words, but I assume it tells me that "Superman is breaking down the
door." Aloud, I pretend to read the words and say, "Superman is breaking
down the door." Words, dialogue, also float out of Superman's mouth.
Because he is breaking down the door, I assume he says, "I am breaking
down the door." Once again, I pretend to read the words and say aloud, "I am
breaking down the door" In this way, I learned to read.

This might be an interesting story all by itself. A little Indian boy teaches
himself to read at an early age and advances quickly. He reads "Grapes of
Wrath" in kindergarten when other children are struggling through "Dick and
Jane." If he'd been anything but an Indian boy living on the reservation, he
might have been called a prodigy. But he is an Indian boy living on the
reservation and is simply an oddity. He grows into a man who often speaks of
his childhood in the third-person, as if it will somehow dull the pain and make
him sound more modest about his talents.

A smart Indian is a dangerous person, widely feared and ridiculed by Indians

and non-Indians alike. I fought with my classmates on a daily basis. They
wanted me to stay quiet when the non-Indian teacher asked for answers, for
volunteers, for help. We were Indian children who were expected to be
stupid. Most lived up to those expectations inside the classroom but

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subverted them on the outside. They struggled with basic reading in school
but could remember how to sing a few dozen powwow songs. They were
monosyllabic in front of their non-Indian teachers but could tell complicated
stories and jokes at the dinner table. They submissively ducked their heads
when confronted by a non-Indian adult but would slug it out with the Indian
bully who was 10 years older. As Indian children, we were expected to fail in
the non-Indian world. Those who failed were ceremonially accepted by other
Indians and appropriately pitied by non-Indians.

I refused to fail. I was smart. I was arrogant. I was lucky. I read books late
into the night, until I could barely keep my eyes open. I read books at recess,
then during lunch, and in the few minutes left after I had finished my
classroom assignments. I read books in the car when my family traveled to
powwows or basketball games. In shopping malls, I ran to the bookstores
and read bits and pieces of as many books as I could. I read the books my
father brought home from the pawnshops and secondhand. I read the books I
borrowed from the library. I read the backs of cereal boxes. I read the
newspaper. I read the bulletins posted on the walls of the school, the clinic,
the tribal offices, the post office. I read junk mail. I read auto-repair manuals. I
read magazines. I read anything that had words and paragraphs. I read with
equal parts joy and desperation. I loved those books, but I also knew that
love had only one purpose. I was trying to save my life.

Despite all the books I read, I am still surprised I became a writer. I was
going to be a pediatrician. These days, I write novels, short stories, and
poems. I visit schools and teach creative writing to Indian kids. In all my
years in the reservation school system, I was never taught how to write
poetry, short stories or novels. I was certainly never taught that Indians wrote
poetry, short stories and novels. Writing was something beyond Indians. I
cannot recall a single time that a guest teacher visited the reservation. There
must have been visiting teachers. Who were they? Where are they now? Do
they exist? I visit the schools as often as possible. The Indian kids crowd the
classroom. Many are writing their own poems, short stories and novels. They
have read my books. They have read many other books. They look at me
with bright eyes and arrogant wonder. They are trying to save their lives.
Then there are the sullen and already defeated Indian kids who sit in the
back rows and ignore me with theatrical precision. The pages of their
notebooks are empty. They carry neither pencil nor pen. They stare out the
window. They refuse and resist. "Books," I say to them. "Books," I say. I
throw my weight against their locked doors. The door holds.

I am smart. I am arrogant. I am lucky. I am trying to save our lives.

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