I, do not, like Francine Prose. She is a bigot and rather annoying, and struggles to see outside of her worldview. For an assignment in a college writing class, I had the absolute misfortune of reading her work titled "I know why the caged bird can't read" and it was Abyssmal. Here is my lovely essay I wrote about such work
Literacy Rates VS The Perpetuated Ideas of Independent Conclusions
Tord L
ENG 11011: College Writing I
September 17, 2025
Whilst literacy rates continue to increase, many argue that we are still not doing enough to educate our country. To approach such a complaint requires elegance and a willingness to accommodate others' opinions, and a strong knowledge of how the American education system works in general. In Francine Prose’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read” (2013), the author attempts to tackle just that: how the American education system, specifically the role of an English class, continues to be lacking; utilizing different appeals of ethos, pathos, and logos, Prose attempts to explain to the average American, or members of school boards, why exactly she believes the titular bird, a stand-in for the American student, “cannot read”, and lacks core literacy skills. Her examples include: using her position as mother and author to establish a sense of dependability with the reader, explaining the need for complicated and challenging books, and giving short quips on famous books commonly found on school reading lists. Using a striking vocabulary, she attempts a witty and intellectual tone throughout the work; Her attempts, however, are futile, doing the opposite of what she intended. Arguing that through faults in the school such as hyperfocuses on diversity makes students struggle more; yet despite how confident her speech comes off, it tends to fall flat, due to Prose considering her own personal opinions, her own life experiences, and what she considers to be proper literature, such as Dante and Homer, over Williams and Lake, in higher regards than founded science surrounding literature. Rather than argue using evidence of literacy rates in America, especially amongst those reading the so-called problem books, she discusses diversity and how it may be harmful, whilst disagreeing with her own points all the way through. Prose’s work comes off as biased and unremarkable, rather ironically, much like how she describes the works she aims to critique.
Ethos is where Prose could shine, given her credentials not only as a teacher, but also as a mother. To appeal to ethos, Prose must consider a few key things in her works: is she truly credible on the given subject, and does she have the right intent in her work? As early as the first sentence, we can see an attempted appeal to ethos: “Like most parents who have, against all odds, preserved a lively and still evolving passion for good books, I find myself, each September, increasingly appalled by the dismal lists of texts that my sons are doomed to waste a school year reading.” (Prose, 2013, p. 176). Prose remarks her disdain for the works given to her children, particularly from the point of a mother with an asserted interest in literature, which she does not forget to give herself repeated pats on the back for. She could point out many qualities, or even give acknowledgement that perhaps in order to be qualified to be taught as a required piece of literature, it may have value, she degrades it, paying it no mind, for it is below her. Her attempt to appeal to the reader from the standpoint of a parent does not work; she simply comes off far too pretentious, with no respect for anything she considers below her, impacting the reader's own opinion of her, far worse than it may have been had she displayed grace. To be a parent hardly gives one the knowledge it takes to teach, let alone the knowledge it takes to be on a board that decides how impactful a book is, not only to our culture but to our world. While, inherently, there is nothing wrong with what she has stated, it simply is unappealing. She uses stories of her children to subscribe to her point, describing the works they were so miserably forced to read: “My own two sons, now twenty-one and seventeen, have read (in public and private schools) Shakespeare, Hawthorne, and Melville. But they’ve also slogged repeatedly through the manipulative melodramas of Alice Walker and Maya Angelou, through sentimental, middlebrow favorites (To Kill a Mockingbird and A Separate Peace), the weaker novels of John Steinbeck, the fantasies of Ray Bradbury” (Prose, 2013, p. 177). This line highlights a recurring issue with Prose: anything that regards politics in a newer or more fantastical sense is tossed aside. To say that Ray Bradbury is something fantastical to be slogged through is not only simply biased, but goes against her point due to his works being valuable reads regarding society, and lends evidence towards her unreliability due to her constant disregard for non-classical literature. Bradbury’s works are hyper-relevant in today's culture, where he writes about things such as book burnings taken to the extreme (read: Fahrenheit 451), yet she makes light of it, due to it seemingly not being realistic enough for her rather refined tastes. To Prose, literature must only be apolitical enough for her to relate to it, yet also political enough for it to be a classic. While Prose, despite all, does display a strong affection for reading, it does not make up for her many shortcomings. An enthusiasm for literature throughout life does not make one immune to a lack of credibility and a clear, even untrustworthy, bias against the works she lists as examples.
Despite how incredibly emotionally invested Prose comes off in her work, pathos is simply not Prose’s strongest card. She attempts to guide the audience by using stories about her children, showing how ‘sad’ the works given to the children were, stating “My older son spent the first several weeks of sophomore English discussing the class’s summer assignment, Ordinary People, a weeper and former bestseller by Judith Guest about a ‘dysfunctional’ family recovering from a teenage son’s suicide attempt” (Prose, 2013, p. 177). This is an utterly unempathetic statement, and does not correlate to her previous statements; she believes literature should challenge you mentally, yet here she states she dislikes these ways of being challenged. If not for those works being written, stories like this couldn’t be told, and literacy rates may likely be lower. A little girl will be entertained by stories directed for girls like her, a point Prose even agrees with, telling the audience that her sons should read Kafka, “Neither has heard a teacher suggest that he read Kafka, though one might suppose that teenagers might enjoy the transformative science-fiction aspects of [Kafka's Metamorphosis]”(Prose, 2013, p. 177). This is displaying that she acknowledges this may appeal to teenage boys, yet she cannot comprehend why literature depicting minorities may be appealing to those groups. Yet again, she continues her stunning lack of empathy by showing disregard for works that tell stories of people belonging to oppressed or otherwise victimized classes. Had she not spoken so harshly and maintained a polite composition throughout her writings, it might have come off far cleaner and reached the intended effect. However it is not favorable as an author to so virulently state that the key books you have an issue with are about these classes, especially as a white author, describing them so poorly as to write “One can see why this memoir might appeal to the lazy or uninspired teacher, who can conduct the class as if the students were the studio audience for Angelou’s guest appearance on Oprah. The author’s frequently vented distrust of white society might rouse even the most sluggish or understandably disaffected ninth-grader to join a discussion of racism; her victory over poverty and abuse..” (Prose, 2013, 178). Prose uses these strong analogies, “as if the students were the studio audience for Angelou’s guest appearance on Oprah”, yet this is perfectly reasonable literature to read, and even enjoy, in an educational setting. A victim may find solace in work such as this; to be a minority and a victim of assault is something that should be written about. If a child is old enough to be a victim, they are old enough to read these subjects. One of the best ways to inspire a student to read a book is to show them a story that mirrors their world, one that doesn't shy away from the horrors of reality. Books are where stories that can't be told out loud can be shown, where catharsis, even if not their own, can be found in the authors of this world who share their experience. Is that not what literature is: showing the wide arrays of the human experience? Every author brings their own voice to the conversation; that’s what makes diversity in a reading list important.
Making this required reading purports the development of empathy and understanding in those who may not experience this, something Prose is against according to herself, “The present vogue for teaching “values” through literature uses the novel as a springboard for the sort of discussion formerly conducted in civics or ethics classes” (Prose, 2013, p. 180), as if literature cannot be educational and useful in learning empathy towards others, especially groups you may not commonly think about or associate with, in addition to largely alienating her audience. Many people do not get these classes, as they typically exist only in higher education, which is not often reachable. To disregard an English class’s impact on things like ethics is to lack understanding of what an English class serves to be; an English class aims not only to teach literacy skills, but to extend critical thinking skills, something that involves ‘values’, as she chooses to refer to it. In Prose’s attempt to get her point across, she constantly puts down other well-established authors, most of whom are trailblazers in their genres, a claim she cannot call for herself.
While still being an article focused on literacy statistics and how well teachers are performing in America, Prose fails to include very many sources, or any data, to support her work in general. She speaks nearly entirely from personal experience; speaking from personal experience could work, however in an article like this, it becomes a necessity to add more evidence towards such a strong argument. Prose says she has reached out to a multitude of schools, telling the audience they can trust her, “I recently collected eighty or so reading lists from high schools throughout the country. Because of how overworked teachers are, how hard to reach during the school day, as well as the odd, paranoid defensiveness that pervades so many schools.” (Prose, 2013, p. 178). Yet, she simply isn’t a professional in this field. The audience does not have proof of this being gathered or its results, merely hearsay, which the audience likely isn't sure they can trust. When Prose spends the entirety of her article insulting educational institutions, then attempts to state her research, it lacks the push behind it that secures the opinion; behaving like Prose does in her writing causes unsourced ‘facts’ to cause more doubt.
“My suspicion is that the reason such texts are not used as often as I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is precisely the reason why they should be taught — that is, because they’re complicated. Baldwin, Als, and McPherson reject obvious ‘lessons’ and familiar arcs of abuse, self-realization, and recovery; they actively refute simplistic prescriptions about how to live” (Prose, 2013, p. 184). Prose continues to show her delusions of grandeur. She boils down complicated discussions to matters of taste, actively refusing to acknowledge what would be most beneficial to use to teach a class of students from different backgrounds and knowledge. She belittles students while actively trying to fight for a better education for them. Her entire purpose for this article is to answer the question of how to make students enjoy reading and utilizing intellectualism while studying literature. She manages to shame teachers and simplify an English class to a hivemind. She's able to identify that the education system is trying to produce a product for society, but her suggested solution is to simply change the books on a reading list rather than deliver an adequate solution to a systemic issue she claims to have noticed. The line of reasoning she uses destroys the argument she is building throughout the entire article; these examples of her failing at logos make her intended message fall flat.
Prose repeatedly falls on her face regarding rhetorical appeals, seen especially in her appeals to ethos. She comes off not only as pompous and ignorant but utterly lacking in empathy. Prose only appears to believe that the teaching of literature she approves of and personally relates to is worthy of being taught in schools. When Prose struggles to find common ground, be it any book written regarding minorities, it seems that it is immediately unworthy of being taught. Her views align with those of censorship, something her audience, which is likely to be educated Americans, especially those involved in school systems, cannot find common ground with. The caged bird does, and will remain reading, despite Prose’s article saying otherwise.
Bibliography Prose, Francine. (2013). I know why the caged bird cannot read. Renee H. Shea and Lawrence Scanlon (Eds.), The language of composition: Reading, writing, rhetoric. (2nd ed., pp. 176-188). Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's.