Young and Dyslexic?

You've Got it Going On

Ideas
Zephaniah is outlining the issues that he encountered with his dyslexia. He outlines the times when he was expelled and
how his sister used to help him.

Context
Zephaniah was born in Birmingham on 15th April 1958. As a black Rastafarian, he has encountered racial prejudice all
his life. He is influenced by his Caribbean heritage.

Author’s purpose
Benjamin Zephaniah is a famous writer. He wrote this piece for ‘The Guardian’ and he aims to reassure his readers that
you can achieve success with dyslexia. He is challenging the stereotypes that are assumed by a community.

Language
Negativity
Throughout the extract is a theme of negativity: ‘no compassion, no understanding and no humanity.’ He outlines his
shame at society for not being positive.
He also writes that he ‘contradicted’ others. This suggests that he always feels as though he was different.
He outlines the harsh reality of stereotypes:
‘A high percentage of the prison population are dyslexic, and a high percentage of the architect population. If you look
at the statistics, I should be in prison: a black man brought up on the wrong side of town whose family fell apart, in
trouble with the police when I was a kid, unable to read and write, with no qualifications and, on top of that, dyslexic.
But I think staying out of prison is about conquering your fears and finding your 40 path in life.’
He uses the long sentence to outline the numerous struggles that he has faced.

Pronoun Usage
Zephaniah address the audience to reassure any parent that has a child with dyslexia:
‘So don’t be heavy on yourself. And if you are a parent of someone with dyslexia don’t think of it as a defect. Dyslexia is
not a measure of intelligence: you may have a genius 80 on your hands. Having dyslexia can make you creative. If you
want to construct a sentence and can’t find the word you are searching for, you have to think of a way to write round it.
This requires being creative and so your ‘creativity muscle’ gets bigger.’
He repetitively uses the pronoun ‘you’ to reassure his audience.
Zephaniah also uses the collective pronoun ‘we’ to include the audience: ‘As a child I suffered, but learned to turn
dyslexia to my advantage, to see the world more creatively. We are the architects, we are the designers.’ This occurs at
the beginning of the extract and creates a sense of inclusivity and community.

Structure
The events occur in chronological order. This means that the events unfold in the order that his life occurred. He uses
ages to signal the time moving on. It is worth creating a list of all the events that took place, at all the different ages.