Throughout his writing career, Soto has written eleven poetry collections for adults and has been awarded both the Bess Hokin Prize and the Levinson Award. He is a recipient of the Tomas Rivera Prize and has earned awards from the PEN Center and National Education Association. His works have been critiqued and praised on numerous occasions, and he was named NBC’s Person-of-the-Week in 1997 for his advocacy for reading. However, as a young boy, Soto never expected any of this. It was in college when one book of poetry would change his life forever.
In “Why Literature Matters”, the Dana Gioia emphasizes the importance of literature. Using logos and pathos, he justifies his claim on how the waning interest in literature is affecting America’s society in many negative ways. In the sixth paragraph, he uses logos to appeal to the working class by referring to a poll in 2001 taken by the National Association of Manufacturers. The poll was taken on their members about the skill deficiencies among their workers.
Their website describes the journal as “a must for college and university libraries and teachers of literature”. The purpose of this article is to show readers that although it seems apparent what Bambara wants her readers to glean from her story, Cartwright proposes might just be an underlying theme. His hope is that by examining the text he can prove that the conflict is not the differences between the rich and the poor; on the contrary, the conflict is the sometimes present resistance to learning even at the detriment of the student. Cartwright states, “the dramatic question that powers the story, that moves it forward, is whether Miss
Thomas Foster’s book, How to Read literature Like a Professor, teaches many readers the importance of reading and understanding a book. He includes points in his book that are easy to connect to books that the readers have read, making it easy for readers to understand the meaning of each chapter. Thomas Foster’s book obviously connects to the book, Wonder, readers can identify a questor, the importance of a meal scene, and
“For weeks I read, speed read, books by modern educational theorists, only to find infrequent and slight mention of students like me. Then one day leafing through Richard Hoggart’s The Uses of Literacy, I found, in his description of the scholarship boy, myself.” (Rodriguez 17) 5. What is the intended audience for this piece? With that in mind, what is the writer’s purpose?
Shadow work was defined by Ivan Illich, as “all the unpaid labor – including, for example, housework – done in a wage-based economy” in 1981 in the book Shadow Work. Craig Lambert, author of “Our Unpaid, Extra Shadow Work”, used the example of a lawyer at a local grocery store checking out her own groceries to define shadow work. This is an example of shadow work because, the service of a cashier is still around, but can be bypassed to save time. Craig Lambert gives a unique insight into shadow work, he doesn’t condone it, or dismiss it. On the other hand he talks about the advantages and disadvantages of shadow work.
Richard Rodriguez wrote “Scholarship Boy” to explain the range of conflicting emotions he felt over receiving an education while growing up at home with his immigrant parents. He enjoyed school and learned quickly, but soon he knew more than his parents could comprehend. He was ashamed of his parents for not knowing as much as he did and this drove him away from them and more towards his instructors and his books. Though his parents were proud of him, he struggled to feel anything but embarrassed of them and this affected how he viewed himself and the education he was blessed to have. When Gerald Gaff was young, he did not feel that books related to his life and that they, therefore, were not worth reading.
In Scott Russell Sanders’ essay “The Inheritance of Tools”, Sanders explores the relationship that he had with his father. Concrete objects like the wooden tools that he inherits from his father provide the basis for the reflections on his relationship with his father. He manages to indicate his attitude very early on in the essay using both features of style and rhetorical strategies. The author establishes his love for his father and sadness at his passing by narrating an anecdotal story involving his hammer, word choice that conveys his sadness, and strong use of imagery.
In Richard Rodriguez’s essay, “The Achievement of Desire” he brings you through important memories of his life that impacted his education, and more specifically his reading and writing. As a child, he was eager to learn and ready to soak up all the knowledge he could get. He received many awards and good feedback from his teachers which gave him all the more motivation to learn more. Soon his motivation came out of annoyance of his parents.
Flashback to my junior year. I sat quietly in my AP Lang class as my teacher, Mrs. Fisher, announced that the reading competition between the language arts classes called for the book count for September. She stood at the board, marker in hand, staring out expectantly at her large class. Hands shot up across the classroom, and my own nervous hand rose up to join them. Mrs. Fisher happily chalked up the small fortune of books that our class had read.
In the essays, “Reading to Write” by Stephen King, “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie, “Learning to Read” Malcolm X, and “Learning to Write” by Frederick Douglas have three things in common. In each essay Reading has contributed towards the authors life leading to benefit from learning to read, allowing them to leave a legacy behind. In each essay the authors has thought their self how unlike Frederick Douglass. For Stephen King, reading has done a lot for him. King stated, “Every book you pick up has its own lesson or lessons, and quite often the bad books have more to teach than the good ones” (221).
In the article, “Why Literature Matters” by Dana Gioia, he states that the decline of interest in literature—especially from young teens—will have a negative outcome in society. Notably, he informs the readers by utilizing strong vocabulary, as well as rhetorical appeals to persuade his audience that the decline in reading will have a negative outcome. This allows readers to comprehend his views and join his side of the argument. Gioia’s word choice assists in showing the magnitude of the text by stressing the meaning and importance of his argument.
As I reading the excerpt, I was impressed by his wonderful writing skill and by how books influenced him like everybody who had read it. Two literary techniques that he used in the excerpt impressed the readers. He used
He gains a new sense of confidence and identity due to the adversity he
And I want you to teach me to understand what I read." (Bradbury 78) Books to him are a way to communicate with others. He is frustrated that everyone else is blind to that. This expresses the value of the books expanding the way of communicating. He knows he will need help on understanding it and
