Example Of Reading Response 1 Article Review

Helen Keller reflects on what she calls “the most important day” of her life when she met her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan. The day was March 3rd, 1987 and Helen Keller was seven years old at the time. She describes her experience prior to this meeting, and prior to her education, as being immersed in a dense fog. This fog was lifted by her education. Her teacher taught her to spell words by tracing the individual letters into her hand. Helen Keller describes her frustrations as a deaf and blind girl with no knowledge of language, and how her teacher slowly brought language to life for her. Her first breakthrough in learning language was when her teacher put her hand under a waterspout, then traced each individual letter into her hand. She then made the connection that the individual letters traced separately, formed the word “water,” collectively. She then learned that everything had a name and became eager to learn them. When she now knew the name of everything, rather than a nameless object, they all became alive to her. She then became happier.
Helen Keller’s story recounts how she came to learn language and how language brought objects to life for her. As a deaf and blind girl, Helen Keller lived in a world of darkness. She had no way of communicating with people and objects were only forms with no identity. Education became a light to this darkness. One thing that jumps out about the reading selection was the patience of her teacher and her ability to try innovative ways to teach Helen. Even when Helen lashed out at her and voiced a frustration, the teacher would calmly respond by trying to teach her a new way. It was only when she was able to make a connection between physical experiences, the cold rushing water that finally language came to life for her. Helen’s life is also a testimony about the value of education and language. Without language, we would not be able to feel connections to the objects around us in the same way and we would be unable to communicate with those around us. Helen shows the type of darkness one can live in if they are unable to know about the world around them and communicate with the people they love. She had previously broken a doll out of frustration, but it was not until she knew that the doll had a name, and what that name was, that she felt sorrow for her deed. This shows the role of education and language in our ability to make connections and feel at home in the world around us.
Helen Keller recounts how the learning of language made the world around her blossom, like a flower. What blossomed was not only her ability to learn and grasp language but also her consciousness. That night when she went to bed, she was anxious to awake because it would be a new stage for her to learn. Language after all is our most fundamental connection with the world around our own internal world and us. We know ourselves by names, we know our loved ones by names – images of their faces and the sound of their voice. To strip a person of all of these experiences would be to strip some of the most fundamental ways that we come to know and love those around us. Even one’s ability to read is contingent on eyes to see, Helen Keller stripped of all of these faculties that are so imperative to our daily interactions with the world.