Francis Prose, an essayist, critic, and parent of two sons, persuades her audience, parents and literary teachers of American high school students, to change the way literature is taught. She takes on an authoritative position as she condemns the way literature is taught. In "I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read," the connotation she uses emphasizes that literature needs to be taught in a different manner to guarantee a brighter future for students. McDonald’s workers have a negative connotation to them as people with limited education are normally stuck employed at McDonald's. By writing this, she points out that if the current teaching system continues, then the only occupation the students will get is as a fast-food worker. As teachers
Often times in today's society, we stumble upon instances of racism and oppression. About 60 years ago, innocent civilians were poorly treated and ridiculed on a day to day basis during the time of segregation. The courage and strength of those men and women was indescribable. So now we ask ourselves, what was it like? In Maya Angelou's “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” Maya effectively uses multiple writing strategies to bring awareness to the prominently apparent issues of racism and oppression that still exist in our society using imagery, pathos, and strong diction to craft her overall message.
The novel, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", by Maya Angelou is the first series of five autobiographical novels. This novel tells about her life in rural Stamps, Arkansas with her religious grandmother and St. Louis, Missouri, where her worldly and glamorous mother resides. At the age of three Maya and her four-year old brother, Bailey, are turned over to the care of their paternal grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. Southern life in Stamps, Arkansas was filled with humiliation, violation, and displacement. These actions were exemplified for blacks by the fear of the Ku Klux Klan, racial separation of the town, and the many incidents in belittling blacks.
In I Know why the Caged Bird Sings the author uses many different literary devices and various figurative language examples. The use of metaphors, imagery, similes, and Symbolism has a great effect. They’re effective due to the fact in how they inform the reader of various important details needed to understand the story completely. The use of specific, different, and various types of language illustrate to the reader the effect of racism on many characters in the novel.
Francine Prose is a mother, a writer, a book reviewer, and most importantly, a massive critic of the type of literature that is demanded of children to read in American high schools. In a very defensive essay, Prose discusses a variety of books that she believes are a wast of actual literature. She uses a variety of rhetoric to attract the reader’s attention, and uses it to also persuade her readers to see things the way she does. Throughout the essay it becomes more apparent that the author makes multiple inferences of what she believes will happen to the generations that will entire a corrupt educational system. In the essay that Prose writes, she explains that the lack of eloquent literature is causing a demise to the education of teenagers
Although the greater picture is that reading is fundamental, the two authors have a few different messages that they seek to communicate to their audiences. “The Joy of Reading and Writing” depicts how reading serves as a mechanism to escape the preconceived notions that constrain several groups of people from establishing themselves and achieving success in their lifetimes. “Reading to Write,” on the other hand, offers a valuable advice to aspiring writers. The author suggests that one has to read, read, and read before he or she can become a writer. Moreover, he holds an interesting opinion concerning mediocre writing. He says, “Every book you pick has its own lesson or lessons, and quite often the bad books have more to teach than the good ones” (p.221). Although these two essays differ in their contents and messages, the authors use the same rhetorical mode to write their essays. Both are process analyses, meaning that they develop their main argument and provide justification for it step by step. By employing this technique, the two authors create essays that are thoughtful, well supported, and easy to understand. In addition, Alexie and King both add a little personal touch to their writings as they include personal anecdotes. This has the effect of providing support for their arguments. Although the two essays have fairly different messages, the authors make use of anecdotes and structure their writing in a somewhat similar
In her novel, “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings';, Maya states “The black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and the lack of black power';. Fortunately Maya was able to move beyond the crossfire, proving that she overcomes opposition that her status throws her way.
Northrop Frye is one of the most influential literary critics of his time, and today. Indeed, one of his most applicable articles was published in 1986, titled, “Don’t You Think It’s Time to Start Thinking?”. He uses several key points to argue that most of society does not think critically and that the skills are purposefully not being taught to keep society compliant. This article, which criticizes how students are taught to think, is still very relevant today. While some may argue that the curriculum has changed over time to incorporate more of critical thinking, that is still not the case. Frye’s article is pertinent even today, especially with the inception of the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test. Society still encourages reading
Gerald Graff is a professor of English and Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago and is highly involved in debates about the current direction of college education. In his essay “Disliking Books,” Graff focuses on using his personal story in order to make a statement about the importance of introducing the arguments over pieces of literature in school. On the other hand, in his essay “Many Voices, Many Rooms,” he uses studies, outside references, and some personal experience in order to express his views about education. In “Other Voices, Other Rooms,” he outlines the need for teachers to connect their topics with other subjects and the outside world so that students not only retain information, but also understand the subject
Authors have done many essays on learning and teaching. In two particular essays, the authors focus more on reading and learning to speak good, which is also associated with reading. The narrators in Frederick Douglas’s essay “Learning to Read and Write” and Maxine Hong Kingston’s “Learning to Speak Like and American Girl” not only tell the reader about their conflict of relationship between society’s dominant culture and their own sense of identity, but educate the reader and explain the choices the characters make which determine the direction of their lives.
In perhaps her most notable work I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings “Angelou’s account of her childhood and adolescence chronicles her frequent encounters with racism, sexism, and classism at the same time that she ...
Without being educated, slavers endure dehumanization and the control of their slaveholders. As a result, Douglass is motivated to get literate with ingenious strategies. He constantly bribes the “little white boys” and the “poor white children” who live closely with him to teach him reading with extra bread (Douglass 62). His writing lessons are from the boys who can compete with him in writing letters, Master Thomas’s book, and ship-yard. Along with his reading’s improvement, he comprehends the injustice between slaves and slaveholders from the books. A book “The Columbian Orator”, which provokes him the critical thinking about slavery and freedom. Through reading the Sheridan’s speeches that are from the same book, he claims, “[w]hat I got from Sheridan was a bold denunciation of slavery, and a powerful vindication of human rights” (Douglass 62). Sometimes he listens the discussion of abolition even though he does not really understands it. Until he gets a city paper that allows him to pray for “the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia” (Douglass 63), he understands the meaning of abolition. Being literate helps him understand the extensive knowledge, which is ready for
The use of Richard Hoggart’s The Uses of Literacy in this story is very thought-provoking. While we are presented with the image of a young Richard Rodriguez and his struggle to deal with his education and family life. We are also presented Hoggart’s image of the “Scholarship boy” the student who has ...
As every well-read person knows, the background in which you grow up plays a huge role in how you write and your opinions. Fuller grew up with a very strict education, learning multiple classic languages before she was eight years old. Fern grew up with writers all throughout her family and had a traditional education and saw first hand the iniquities of what hard-working had to contend with. Through close analysis of their work, a reader can quickly find the connections between their tone, style, content, and purpose and their history of their lives and their educational upbringing.
This book covers many different points of Schultz’s life. One, Philip Schultz takes a look back at his childhood school years and writes about his troubles and understands it was not because he was not intelligent but because he had a learning disability. Second, Schultz discusses a teacher who did not believe in him; the teacher laughed at him when he told his teacher he wanted to become a writer. The way
The story “Brownies” by ZZ Packer could be looked at as a work of literature from certain views, but in the opinion of Prose, the author of “ I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read,” I do not believe that this story would be looked at as a work of literature. This story does not seem very “uplifting” as Prose would want it to be for a high school reader. Although it is a very interesting story and it holds many important messages about our society and culture, it does not hold up to Prose’s standards as a work of literature.