Why The Caged Bird Cannot Read

In “Superman and Me” Alexie begins by telling a short story about his childhood where he lived on an Indian reservation. He presents us with a few tales about how as a kid he was always interested in books and he compared paragraphs to fences as well as his siblings. Alexie viewed everything in his young life as pieces of paragraphs which made up the entire story of his life. Subsequently he transitions into the next part of the story where he presents us with the idea that an indian who views knowledge as a tool can be dangerous because they can break out of the common stereotypes placed on their culture. Alexie now gives back to his culture by trying to help other Indian children value knowledge like he has. Similarly, in “Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read” Prose uses evidence she obtained from high schools across the country to build on the idea she proposes which is schools all follow the same set curriculum of books they have kids read; consequently, the students are never able to break out of their shells and advance their learning capabilities. Prose suggests towards the end a solution to the problem but doesn’t build much on her idea, but we can infer she believes students should be challenged. Alexie and Prose use different writing patterns, …show more content…
Many people also agree with them on this issue, but they push for students to read difficult text and form conclusions on these books by themselves. Many students are not ready at such a young age to use reading as such a powerful tool. In Prose writing she says teens enjoy the complicated stories that are considered classics, but this is not always the case. Students should be allowed to choose what they read based on their interests. Learning based on interest would allow students to not create a negative attitude towards reading. This could be a way to allow more students to enjoy reading and learn from the books they