Having support while doing something difficult is very nice, it makes you feel better and makes you want to complete the task you are facing even more difficult. Becoming literate is a difficult thing to do and you will need all the support you can get. Support such as having a role model, being encouraged, and being determined are the most essential things to have to be successful in literacy. To become literate it is important that the person has a role model to look up to and strive to be like. Having a role model or mentor in their life will make them feel supported, but it will also give them strength and show them that someone else did it and that they can do it too. Role models can be a support system, but they can also be a teacher and helper. She states, “My father loved books, and because I loved my father with an aching devotion, I decided to love books too.” (Alexie 16) Without his father's presence, Sherman probably would never have picked up a book. He would have been like all the other Native Americans and would not have learned to read and write. Alexie's father played an important role in his learning to read and write, as well as his support system and mentor. Sherman admired his father and wanted to be just like him in every way possible, so he did. Your role model doesn't always have to be a family member, but can also be a friend. In Learning to Read and Write by Frederick Douglas at first he had a mistress to help him and when she stopped he turned to boys his own age to help him read and write. He says, “My mistress, who had kindly begun to instruct me..” (Douglass 118) Douglass's mistress may not have been a role model, but she was a teacher to him and this gave him support and someone to communicate with. He also had kids who tricked him into teaching him to read. He says “When I met any boy who I knew could write, I told him I could write as well as he” (Douglass 123). much easier process than having no encouragement at all. Encouraging a person to learn to read would make him want to learn much more and he would like to feel that the encourager is proud of him. An example of this is that I know from personal experience that having encouragement makes doing something much easier and makes me happy. When I played hockey, with my parents and family in the audience cheering me on, it made me want to try as hard as I could and be the best. Rather than having no one on my side encouraging me, I would be lazier and not do my best. That's why having someone or something encouraging the person to learn to read would make everything easier and make him do his best. Encouragement can come from family, friends, and even a community. Alexie was not encouraged by his Native American community to read and write and this probably made it more difficult for him to do so. He states in The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me "Those who failed were ceremonially accepted by other Indians and appropriately pitied by non-Indians." (Alexie 17) Alexie probably agrees that if he had been encouraged and supported by his community he would have achieved a lot