Blog Post 3

Jordan Prader

Melinda Schroeder

10-21-16

Blog Post 3

“Fish Cheeks”

“Fish Cheeks” is a short essay written by Amy Tan, that was featured in Seventeen. When Amy was a young girl, her family had invited the minister’s family over for Christmas dinner. At the time she had a crush on the minister’s son, Robert, and she was horrified as her family would poke the eyes out of the fish, burp, and dig into their traditional Chinese food. I believe that the purpose of this text is to show kids that their family may be embarrassing, but their is no shame in family. The main point in the essay is when Amy’s mother tells her, “You must be proud you are different.”(Amy’s mom, par.7). She means that, as embarrassing as your family is, as much as you wish you could be someone else, it’s important to be proud of your heritage, because that is a part of you that you shouldn’t want to hide.

“Superman and Me”

“Superman and Me” is a short story by Sherman Alexie, that explains his process to learning to read, and where it got him. As a young boy Sherman taught himself to read, with a Superman comic. He loved to read, and he didn’t want to be stuck as a failure on the reservation, so he used reading as a tool for him to succeed. The purpose of the text is to show kids how you don’t need to follow the crowd, you can break out of any stereotype that holds you back. The main point of this short story is that, your heritage or stigma attached to your heritage should not bar you from being who you want to be. Sherman shows that even though he lived on a reservation, even though his family was poor, and even though he was ridiculed by his peers, he still persevered and succeeded in life.

I chose to use “Superman and Me” for my essay. I think I will have a better time writing about this short story over “Fish Cheeks”, because when I was younger I also loved to read. It appeals to me because that is how I was, except I didn’t teach myself to read. I enjoyed reading so much that I would read through the night and it would have felt like an hour to me. This story felt personal to me, but I didn’t have anything holding me back like he did. Also, “Superman and Me” has more content, so I feel like it would be considerably easier to write something long about it.
I commented on Andrea's and Shelby's blog.