Lord of the Rings: Week 2, Here in Harlem, and Literacy Rates in America

This is my second week reading Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien. I am about 130 pages in at this point. From where I left off last week, Faramir goes off into battle, driven away by his father. Faramir then returns, but is gravely injured and his father, the king, essentiallly has a massive breakdown. He orders himself and his son to be burned alive together so that they may die together before the war takes them. Gandalf is the only one that can stop this insane order from being carried out. Since Pippin has heard all of this and is determined to stop it, he goes and finds Gandalf, who is about to go out into battle, and brings him back to the king to talk sense into him. The war is in full gear and the leader of the Nazgûl (or Ringwraiths) comes to the battlefield to try and strike fear into the hearts of their enemies. At this point, the Riders of Rohan arrive to the battlefield and are presented with the challenge of dealing with the Nazgûl leader. Théoden and Éowyn attempt to defeat him and manage to in the end, but only at the cost of Théoden's life and major injury to Éowyn. Aragorn also arrives to battle within this time period. 

This week, I also read part of the book of poetry Here in Harlem by Walter Dean Myers. I read about 55 pages of it. It was really quite an interesting book because the collection of poetry was extremely well rounded. There was poetry from people of many ages with many different professions. It showed the culture and lifestyle of people in Harlem at the time extremely well. I particularly enjoyed a poem that was multiple haikus by an artist that described the many colors of Harlem and how they shift over time.

Now to address the question of the week once again: Should America be concerned with decreasing literacy? What, if anything, can or should be done to battle this problem? 

I definitely think that America should be concerned with the literacy rate considering how much worse it is getting and even how bad it already is. Literacy is extremely important to be able to clearly articulate ideas to others and to understand separate ideas as well. Besides speech, reading and writing is the main form of communication in society and is essential to learn. Something that can be done to help improve the situation would be to make sure national standards in schools are higher perhaps and to at least begin teaching literacy to everyone at a young age. I suppose it would also help for people to be able to learn from experience through common communication. Reaching out and trying to teach people is probably one of the only ways that will help the situation get any better.