Overview of the Concept
In 1946, George Orwell noted that
an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.
Later in the same essay, he summarizes this idea: “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” This is true. We must focus on that, but we can also focus on a feedback loop that builds strength in thinking through strength in writing. We can listen to Orwell but invoke Neil Postman:
Writing makes it possible and convenient to subject thought to a continuous and concentrated scrutiny. Writing freezes speech and in so doing gives birth to the grammarian, the logician, the rhetorician, the historian, the scientist — all those who must hold language before them so that they can see what it means, where it errs, and where it is leading.
We also pay attention to Paul Graham and his theory that essay-writing in school focuses on literary analysis through “a series of historical accidents,” with the end result that most school essays are “now three steps removed from real work.” Even non-literary assignments lose authenticity in the pursuit of academic emulation.
The path forward has you read what you write and write what you read. You must understand how an author writes in order to emulate those strategies in your work, not just to produce the sort of analysis that a cursory search of Google would reveal. It’s the difference between applied and theoretical science, and the difference between blowing up the kitchen and learning how to tell a good joke:
So we arrive at emulation-through-analysis (ETA) work, which is designed to teach you how to answer analytical questions while you answer them. You should define new terms, look up new concepts, and enlist the feedback mechanisms of the space to help you. Getting the right answer is a goal; understanding how to use the strategy or technique is the goal. And the substructure is, as always, made of the universal skills of grade abatement, especially these:
Keep those universal skills and traits handy. You must know how to create in order to create. A makerspace requires granular expertise before experimentation and iteration will yield results. Otherwise, it’s just a sandbox.
“I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read” by Francine Prose
Start with the essay, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read,” by Francine Prose, which is available to BHS students here:
It will also be photocopied and posted to Google Classroom as part of any formalized in-class and interstitial work. The following questions, all drawn from that textbook chapter, allow us to do the kind of analysis necessary to implement the most effective writing strategies.
Before you answer these questions, know two things:
First, In addition to the usual feedback, I will give you a set of instructional responses to these questions. They are teaching responses, written as much to explain the concept, question, etc., as to give you the “correct” answer. This key will let you test your collegiality and critical thinking, but it will most directly test these skills and traits:
Second, you must answer these prompts by combing a sense of creativity (e.g., discussing your love/hate for literature, imagining what schools might do to encourage reading) with a granular understanding of Prose’s expert effectiveness (e.g., learning how to appeal to ethos as she does). We’ll always move from questions on rhetoric and style into emulative responses, personal essays, even rhetorical analysis essays — all writing that requires both to be effective and enjoyable.
Ask questions, make observations, and engage the assignment in the comment section below.
Questions on Rhetoric and Style
- Discuss three appeals to ethos in this essay. What different roles, or personae, does Prose use to establish her ethos?
- Prose’s opening paragraph includes such words as appalled, dismal, and dreariness – all with negative connotations. Why does she start out with such strong language? Does she risk putting off readers who do not share her views? Why or why not? What other examples of strongly emotional language do you find in the essay?
- Prose makes several key assumptions about the role and impact of reading literary works in high school. What are they?
- What appeals does she make to logos?
- Prose cites many different novels and plays. Does she assume her audience is familiar with some of them? All of them? Explain why it matters whether the audience knows the works.
- According to Prose, “To hold up [I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings] as a paradigm of memoir, of thought – of literature – is akin to inviting doctors convicted of malpractice to instruct our medical students” (para. 13). Do you agree with this analogy? Explain your answer. What other examples of figurative language can you find in this essay?
- Toward the end of the essay (paras. 35, 39, and 43), Prose uses a series of rhetorical questions. What is her purpose in piling one rhetorical question on top of the other?
- Would Prose have strengthened her argument by including interviews with a few high school students or teachers? Why or why not?
- According to Prose, why are American high school students learning to loathe literature? Try to find at least four or five reasons.
- Does she propose a solution or recommendations to change this situation? If she does not offer a solution, is her argument weakened? Explain your answer.