In her 1999 essay, I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read, Francine Prose examines what she believes is the detrimental relationship between novels written by writers of different ethnic groups and identities and high school students. By employing rhetorical devices such as ethos, rhetorical questions, and cause and effect, Prose can emphasize how new curriculums in high school English courses including novels by culturally diverse writers are causing students to show less interest in reading.
Prose begins her essay with an anecdote where she relates herself to other parents of high school students by saying she finds herself each September “increasingly appalled by the dismal lists of texts that [her] sons are doomed to waste a school year reading.” Providing this anecdotal evidence …show more content…
In paragraph forty-five she describes “the new English-class graduate,” a student that has been taught using a lesson plan that focuses more on the values of “empathy and imagination less than the ability to make quick and irreversible judgments.” Because students are being taught using a curriculum like this one, they have a laziness when it comes to reading; they are less likely to empathize with the author, ending in them not understanding the purpose or meaning of the novel. Instead, they make quick judgements by connecting themselves to the novel through personal experiences. Using cause and effect abets Prose in stressing the results of altering high school English curriculums.
Throughout her essay, Prose uses rhetorical devices such as ethos, rhetorical questions, and cause and effect to illustrate the negative relationship between culturally diverse literature in high school curriculums and the students being taught using them. Ultimately, Prose employs these devices to establish credibility, reiterate any ideas she made earlier in her writing and highlight the effects new curriculums have on high school
Prose begins her essay with an anecdote where she relates herself to other parents of high school students by saying she finds herself each September “increasingly appalled by the dismal lists of texts that [her] sons are doomed to waste a school year reading.” Providing this anecdotal evidence …show more content…
In paragraph forty-five she describes “the new English-class graduate,” a student that has been taught using a lesson plan that focuses more on the values of “empathy and imagination less than the ability to make quick and irreversible judgments.” Because students are being taught using a curriculum like this one, they have a laziness when it comes to reading; they are less likely to empathize with the author, ending in them not understanding the purpose or meaning of the novel. Instead, they make quick judgements by connecting themselves to the novel through personal experiences. Using cause and effect abets Prose in stressing the results of altering high school English curriculums.
Throughout her essay, Prose uses rhetorical devices such as ethos, rhetorical questions, and cause and effect to illustrate the negative relationship between culturally diverse literature in high school curriculums and the students being taught using them. Ultimately, Prose employs these devices to establish credibility, reiterate any ideas she made earlier in her writing and highlight the effects new curriculums have on high school