Frederick Douglass: The Power Of Writing

According to the New York City writing project at Lehman College ,“... Reading, writing and thinking are interrelated activities that contribute to the student’s success in school, college, the community and the workplace.” Reading and writing and thinking are associated with each other and can actually help people reach success through the power of reflection. Reflection is being able to think of our past and present experience and really analyze how we can become better. Reflection also allows one to better understand what is going on around us. Frederick Douglass and Amy Tan’s literacy and language allowed them to achieve success through reflection. Frederick Douglass was a slave that learned how to read and write even besides the

In the other hand he did achieve success through reflection because he was really realizing what what the situation he and his fellow slaves were experience. “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,with ot remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit” Here we can see that through his knowledge it began to make him more aware about what was happening but it also caused him to reflect on the situation he was in. He at one point believed that they may have not been a remedy for the condition that he was in. However, Douglass started to hear that the word abolished is mentioned a lot even though he did not know the exact word he was curious. For instance, “ I didn 't know what was to be abolished. Here I was perplexed. I did not dare to ask anyone about its meaning,for I was satisfied that it was something they wanted me to know very little about. After a patient waiting, I got one of our city papers, containing an account of the number of petitions from the north,praying for the abolition of slavery..” Later on it then states that he finally was able to understand and it allowed him to reflect and be able to see a solution that can make the lives of him and his fellow slaves better. “ From this time I understood the

It had helped the student but others may think it is not important and may be confusing to students but that is not true. For instance “ Teachers realized that they needed to spend time teaching students how to reflect. They asked students, "What does a reflection look like when it really tells you something about the experience?" After considerable discussion—and after considering models of reflection from students and published authors—the students began to understand what was called for. Reflection was not a time for testimonials about how good or bad the experience was. Instead, reflection was the time to consider what was learned from the experience. Reflection was a time to describe what students saw in their own work that changed, needed to change, or might need to be described so another person might understand its meaning.” Even though it was hard at first for the teachers to teach their students how to reflect they wanted the students to reflect on what was learned from the experience. Reflection had to be something more dynamic than just looking at the good and bad. Therefore literacy leads to reflection and as a result can allow one to achieve their own