Discussion and Writing Questions 1 4 on page 388 A Homemade Education MALCOLM X 1 Malcolm X says that in the streets he had been the most articulate hustler of all but in writing English he not only wasn t articulate he wasn t even functional In my point view I think he means that there are a lot of differences between the street language and the writing language in English In the street where he grew up he was a person who could say English articulately to get attention by people But then when he was trying to write simple English he had difficulties in expressing what he wanted to convey in his letters He found himself struggling with the language on his childhood streets growing up and the language of literature Therefore he convinced himself to increase the ability to read and write 2 First Bimbi who had always taken charge of any conversation he was in made Malcolm feel desired of his stock of knowledge It motivated him to study and learn more words Then he found out that the best thing he could do was get hold of a dictionary to improve his ability to read and write However after spending two days just thumbing through the dictionary s pages he quickly realized that there were so many words existed Also he could not decide which words he needed to learn Finally he began copying all the words of the dictionary into his tablets Then he repeated loudly everything he had written to himself And effectively he could remember what those words meant Moreover he learned of people places and events from history That was the way he learned the entire dictionary Quickly after so much practice he gained his writing skills and picked up handwriting speed Before he picked up books skipped those words that he couldn t understand then finally ended up with little idea of what the book said But until then with his endless effort he began to understand what the book was saying Literally that was the benefits he gained from copying a dictionary 3 In paragraph 11 Malcolm X says that until he went to prison he never had been so truly free his life Personally I think he means Being in prison he realized that literature led him to a freedom he never had or ever felt before As his vocabulary expanded finally he was able to read books and perceive them With reading books months passed quickly without his realization He didn t even think about being in the prison Also he explained how his interest and determination to be able to read and understand And as a result Malcolm X describes his success by indicating in fact up to then I never had been so truly free in my life 4 I haven t seen the entire movie Malcolm X but recently I have seen the film s prison scenes I personally think that the film makes a great job to show the audiences how strongly Malcolm X was changed by improving his writing skills in prison The scene describes how Malcolm X made his decision to begin reading the dictionary He found himself struggling whether or not he should start copying the entire dictionary Then he decided to spend every single day in prison to start copying and learning the vocabulary from the dictionary in order to increase his ability to speak and write fluently in the English language of literature I like this part of the movie because of Malcolm s transformation He changed the way he spoke as well as the way he wrote By the time he is freed from prison Malcolm is a whole new man far from the hustler he used to be