SOAPST of "I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read"

             The literary piece "I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read" gives a bias yet strong perspective upon the wrongdoings of what teachers give their students to read. The Speaker is Francine Prose. She is a reporter, essayist, critic, and editor born in the late 1940s. The occasion is set for Harper's magazine in 1999. The audience includes everyone; parents, teachers, and students. The purpose is to inform on the dry and uninteresting reading curriculum the schools enforce, and to persuade the authority to change that curriculum into a more sensual and diverse range of books. The subject is about giving critique upon the quality of required reading in American high schools. Her tone is sassy and witty. Already based upon the title, Prose cleverly uses Angelou's novel "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" as a comeback to her own opinion, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read". In effect, the twisted title clearly states Prose's side on how high school students learn to loathe literature. Other than that, her tone is also familiar. Through anecdotes and personal experience, Prose also relates to the audience. She explains how her two sons gone through the same story, reading the same books and going through the same routine as every student as experienced. Finally, Prose's tone is as well disappointed. As evidence, she declares, "But rather than exposing students to works of literature that expand their capacities and vocabularies, sharpen their comprehension, and deepen the level at which they think and feel, we either offer them 'easy books' that 'anyone' can understand, or we serve up the tougher works predigested".