Learning to read and write, Study Guides, Projects, Research of United States History

Download Learning to read and write and more Study Guides, Projects, Research United States History in PDF only on Docsity! FREDERICK DOUGLASS Learning to Read and Write Frederick Douglass was born a slave in 1818 in Maryland, He learned to read and write, escaped to New York, and became a leader in the abo- litionist movement. He engaged in speaking tours and edited North Star, a newspaper named for the one guide escaping southern slaves could rely on to find their way to freedom. Douglass is best known for his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), from which “Learning to Read and Write” is excerpted. In this selection, Douglass tells the story of his coming to literacy. As you read, keep your eye on the ways in which Douglass describes the world opening up for him as he learns his letters and the range of emotions this process evokes in him. I lived in Master Hugh’s family about seven years. During this time, I succeeded in learning to read and write. In accomplishing this, I was compelled to resort to various stratagems. I had no regular teacher. My mistress, who had kindly commenced to instruct me, had, in compliance with the advice and direction of her husband, not only ceased to instruct, but had set her face against my being instructed by any one else. It is due, however, to my mistress to say of her, that she did not adopt this course of treatment immediately. She at first lacked the depravity indis- pensable to shutting me up in mental darkness. It was at least necessary for her to have some training in the exercise of irre- sponsible power, to make her equal to the task of treating me as though I were a brute. My mistress was, as I have said, a kind and tender-hearted woman; and in the simplicity of her soul she commenced, when I first went to live with her, to treat me as she supposed one human being ought to treat another. In entering upon the duties of a slaveholder, she did not seem to perceive that I sustained to her the relation of a mere chattel, and that for her to treat me as a 100 LEARNING TO READ AND WRITE 101 human being was not only wrong, but dangerously so. Slavery proved as injurious to her as it did to me. When I went there, she was a pious, warm, and tender-hearted woman. There was no sor- row or suffering for which she had not a tear. She had bread for the hungry, clothes for the naked, and comfort for every mourner that came within her reach. Slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these heavenly qualities. Under its influence, the ten- der heart became stone, and the lamb-like disposition gave way to one of tiger-like fierceness. The first step in her downward course was in her ceasing to instruct me. She now commenced to practise her husband’s precepts. She finally became even more violent in her opposition than her husband himself. She was not satisfied with simply doing as well as he had commanded; she seemed anxious to do better. Nothing seemed to make her more angry than to see me with a newspaper. She seemed to think that here lay the danger. I have had her rush at me with a face made all up of fury, and snatch from me a newspaper, in a manner that fully revealed her apprehension. She was an apt woman; and a little experience soon demonstrated, to her satisfaction, that edu- cation and slavery were incompatible with each other. From this time I was most narrowly watched. If I was in a sep- arate room any considerable length of time, I was sure to be sus- pected of having a book, and was at once called to give an account of myself. All this, however, was too late. The first step had been taken. Mistress, in teaching me the alphabet, had given me the inch, and no precaution could prevent me from taking the elf. The plan which I adopted, and the one by which I was most successful, was that of making friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the street. As many of these as I could, I converted into teachers. With their kindly aid, obtained at different times and in different places, I finally succeeded in learning to read. When I was sent of errands, I always took my book with me, and by going one part of my errand quickly, I found time to get a les- son before my return. I used also to carry bread with me, enough of which was always in the house, and to which I was always wel- come; for I was much better off in this regard than many of the poor white children in our neighborhood. This bread I used to bestow upon the hungry little urchins, who, in return, would give me that more valuable bread of knowledge. I am strongly tempted to give the names of two or three of those little boys, as a  102 FREDERICK DOUGLASS testimonial of the gratitude and affection I bear them; but pru- dence forbids: — not that it would injure me, but it might embar- rass them; for it is almost an unpardonable offence to teach slaves to read in this Christian country. It is enough to say of the dear little fellows, that they lived on Philpot Street, very near Durgin and Bailey's ship-yard. I used to talk this matter of slavery over with them. I would sometimes say to them, I wished I could be as free as they would be when they got to be men. “You will be free as soon as you are twenty-one, but Iam a slave for life! Have not I as good a right to be free as you have?” These words used to trouble them; they would express for me the liveliest sympathy, and console me with the hope that something would occur by which I might be free. I was now about twelve years old, and the thought of being a slave for life began to bear heavily upon my heart. Just about this time, I got hold of a book entitled “The Columbian Orator.” Every opportunity I got, I used to read this book. Among much of other _interesting matter, I found in it a dialogue between a master and his slave. The slave was represented as having run away from his master three times. The dialogue represented the conversation which took place between them, when the slave was retaken the third time. In this dialogue, the whole argument in behalf of slavery was brought forward by the master, all of which was dis- posed of by the slave. The slave was made to say some very smart as well as impressive things in reply to his master —things which had the desired though unexpected effect; for the conversation resulted in the voluntary emancipation of the slave on the part of the master. In the same book, I met with one of Sheridan's mighty speeches on and in behalf of Catholic emancipation. These were choice documents to me. I read them over and over again with unabated interest. They gave tongue to interesting thoughts of my own soul, which had frequently lashed through my mind, and died away for want of utterance. The moral which I gained from the dialogue was the power of truth over the conscience of even a slaveholder. What I got from Sheridan was a bold denunciation of slavery, and a powerful vindication of human rights. The reading of these documents enabled me to utter my thoughts, and to meet the arguments brought forward to sustain slavery; but while they relieved me of one difficulty, they brought on another even more LEARNING TO READ AND WRITE 103. painful than the one of which I was relieved. The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us to slavery. I loathed them as being the meanest as well as the most wicked of men. As I read and contemplated the subject, behold! that very discontentment which Master Hugh had predicted would follow my learning to read had already come, to torment and sting my soul to unutter- able anguish. As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out. In moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own. Any thing, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me. There was no getting rid of it. It was pressed upon me by every object within sight or hearing, ani- mate or inanimate. The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal wakefulness, Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever. It was heard in every sound, and seen in every thing, It was ever present to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition. I saw nothing without seeing it, [heard noth- ing without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling it. It looked from every star, it smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm. Toften found myself regretting my own existence, and wishing myself dead; and but for the hope of being free, I have no doubt but that I should have killed myself, or done something for which I should have been killed. While in this state of mind, I was eager to hear any one speak of slavery. I was a ready listener. Every little while, I could hear something about the abolitionists. It was some time before I found what the word meant. It was always used in such connections as to make it an interesting word to me. If a slave ran away and succeeded in getting clear, or if a slave killed his master, set fire to a barn, or did any thing very wrong in the mind of a slaveholder, it was spoken of as the fruit of aboli- tion. Hearing the word in this connection very often, I set about learning what it meant. The dictionary afforded me little or no Douglass/Leaming to Read and Write Memmi, colonization. Write an essay comparing and contrasting how Douglass and Memmi convey the impact of one person or group wielding power over another. “Learning to Read and Write” by Frederick Douglass, paragraph 2, pp. 100-101. From The Colonizer and the Colorized, by Alberl Memmi: It is impossible for him [the colonizer] not to be aware of the constant ille- gitimacy of his status. TL is, moreover, in a way, a double illegitimacy. A for- eigner, having come to a land by the accidents of history, he has succeeded not merely in creating a place for himself but also in taking away thal of the inhabitant, granting himsell astounding privileges to the detriment of those rightfully entitled to them. And this not by virtue of local laws, which in a certain way legitimize this inequality by tradition, but by upsetting the cs- tablished rules and substituting his own. He thus appears doubly unjust. He is a privileged being and an illegitimately privileged one; that is, a usurper. Furthermore, this is so, not only in the eyes of the colonized, but in his own as well. If he occasinnally objects that the privileged also exist among the bourgeois colonized, whose affluence equals ur exceeds his, he does so with- oul conviction. Not to be the only one guilty can be reassuring, but it cannot absolve. MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS These multiple-choice questiois refer to paragraphs i-4. 1. The overall organization of this excerpt 4. What dacs Douglass mean by his descrip- can best be described as a, a chronological sequence of events b, a first-person narrative with little ana- lytical commentary by the speaker c. an angry polemic against the evils of slavery d. a statement of the narrator's accom- plishment followed by an explanation of how he reached it a sympathetic portrayal of a system that victimized both the oppressor and the oppressed. S The final sentence in paragraph 1 in- cludes which of the lallawing? I, understatement TI. figurative language I. acomplex sentence a. lonly b. Tonly c. Land Tonly d. ILand II only e. LIL, and Ii In paragraph 2, Douglass uses all of the following EXCEPT a. metonymny b. personification c. anaphora d. allusion e. connotation tion of his mistress as “an apt woman” {paragraph 2)? a. admirable b. appropriate c. deceptive d. intelligent e. shrewd What is the rhetorical purpose of para- graph 3? a. to qualify points made in the previous paragraph b. to emphasize how Douglass's reac- tions turned Lo action c. to offer a counterargument to the one presented in the previous paragraph d. to qualify Douglass's understanding of the importance of learning to read e. to provide a transition fom Douglass's past experiences Lo those in the present What is Douglass’s attitude toward the young boys he describes in paragraph 4? angry reproach studied indifference condescending pity reflective apprecialion grudging respect eae ep Douglass/Learning to Read and Write In the context of this passage, all of the 9. Which of the following best describes follawing are examples of irony EXCEPT Douglass's tone throughout paragraphs 1 a. “lacked the depravity” (paragraph 1) thraugh 4? hb. “the simplicity of her soul’ (paragraph 2) a, sympathetic and reflective c. “anxious to do better” (paragraph 2) b. respectful but firm d. “first step had been taken” (paragraph 3) c. sarcastic and angry ce. “Twas much better off in this regard” d. passionate and determined (paragraph 4} e. irate but carefully judicious The primary audience that Douglass is addressing in this excerpt is/are slaveholders Master Hugh's family sympathizers to the abolitionist cause other ex-slaves readers of The Cokunbian Orator one SUGGESTED WRITING ASSIGNMENTS 1. Write an essay in which you analyze the appeals to cthos, logos, and pathos in “Learning to Read and Write.” Write an essay comparing and contrasting the experiences of Frederick Douglass and Mal- colm X as they learned to read and write. Douglass Finds that the learning he has experienced has a negative side as well as a positive side. Write-about a time when you learned something that had both advantages and dis- advantages, or that both helped and harrned you. Define another literacy that you have besides being able to read and write (for example, com- puter literacy, a second language, numerical literacy). What power does it give you? How does it make you a member of a community or of certain groups? CONNECTIONS INSIDE AND OUTSIDE 30 ESSAYS INSIDE The following cssays address the power inherent in the mastery of language (reading, writ- ing, speaking): e “Learning to Read” by Malcolin X e “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” by Richard Rodriguez » “TI Just Wanna He Average” by Mike Rose OUTSIDE ° African American poet Robert Hayden's 1962 poem “Frederick Douglass,” which appeared on the 2001 AP Literature exam, offers a tribute as well as an interpretation of this ex- cerpl by Douglass, Students might discuss how Hayden's view is supported by the essay “Learning to Read and Write”: www.ctadams.com/roberthayden1.himl * Students might read Douglass's famous speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” delivered on July 5, (852, as a study in rhetorical strategies. Since it is quite long, excerpts would be appropriate. douglassarchives.org/doug_a10.htm * Both Douglass and Malcolm X comment on the rolc of education in a democracy that has ostensibly lailed them or excluded them. Their writings, if coupled with those of early educa- tional theorists like John Dewey and Horace Mann, and with those of more contemporary analysts like Neil Postman and Diane Ravitch, could make for an interesting dialogue about educational development. For a more creative assignment, consider a conversation between, for instance, Douglass, Malcolm X, Dewey, and Ravitch on taday’s public urban school systems. 31 DOUGLASS ld 2¢ 3c Sue noe De ao