What kinds of readers are Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.?
Malcolm X, “Freedom Through Learning to Read”
Martin Luther King Jr., “Pilgrimage to Non-violence”
In their introduction to Literacies, the editors summarize Robert Scholes’ definition of what makes a good reader. Good readers, they write, “have to read a text closely and openly enough to risk being swayed by what it says…But good readers, he believes, do not stop there. Having submitted for a while to someone else’s meanings in a text, they step back, reconsider from their own perspective, and find ways to evaluate based on what they bring to the reading and what they know of the world. After having temporarily ‘surrendered,’ good readers use their critical skills to ‘recover’ their own integrity and shape their own meanings, Scholes says, which may now be broader and more powerful because they will incorporate elements of both persons’ perspectives.”
What kinds of readers are Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.? Using the above definition of “good reading” and referring to examples from both essays, show how both writers read for different reasons and in different ways. Be sure to use quotations from both essays to illustrate your assertions.
