Francine-Prose Essay

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EXEMPLARS GUIDE: " I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read" by Francine Prose Truly effective insight and writing requires succinctness, clarity, and an exemplary understanding of three things: the central text, the question, and the author’s manipulation of rhetoric. You must write with cogency yourself, demonstrating a thorough reading of the passage or article and using copious evidence, generally and specifically, that proves your analysis correct. The following exemplars are guides, not verbatim responses that you should copy. Emulate the approach and the ideas, not necessarily the language itself. It’s also important to note here that these exemplars are cobbled together from multiple sources, and they include language and phrasing that is not mine. 1. Discuss three appeals to ethos in this essay. What different roles, or personae, does Prose use to establish her ethos? Note first that the question asks for “three appeals to ethos”; that necessitates at least three in your response, and while there are appeals other than those created by personae, the question guides you to consider Prose as adopting “different roles.” For each role, you must do more than summarize. Use specifics and direct your analysis to moments in the text as well as the text’s overall arc. You might start with the idea that Prose is careful to begin her essay by speaking on the friendly common ground of parenthood. As she continues, her role as educator and English professor becomes a stronger persona; the way she presents research she has done establishes this ethos (para. 29 is a striking example). She also speaks as a reader, someone who loves books, especially fiction, and learns from them; the section on her reading of King Lear is particularly germane to this persona (paras. 30 and 31). By the last few paragraphs, she speaks as an informed citizen, perhaps even
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