Francine Prose wrote "I know why the caged bird can't read" to describe that American high school students learn to hate literature partly because they are asked to read mediocre, easy novels. She supports this claim using examples from her children's experiences with their school system and reading lists collected from around the country. Both of these pieces of evidence help her develop an argument that is very difficult to refute. In the last paragraphs he states an alternative solution to this problem and explains it. His solution is to tell students that books are a work of art. The goal of prose is to get high school students to appreciate real literature. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Prose uses evidence from his children's experiences in high school to establish credibility and show the wide range of people who are affected by the American school system. She raises her “two sons” and discusses their reading repertoire in both public and private schools. He states: "Neither has heard a teacher suggest they read Kaftka... No instructor has ever asked my children to read Alice Munro." which shows the lack of diversity in teachers' book choices. She says they were forced to drool through To Kill a Mockingbird and "John Steinbeck's weaker novels" which raised the idea of ​​mediocre, easy novels. He points out early on that “early encounters with literature leave such indelible impressions” that they lead to his children “repeatedly trudging through…manipulative melodramas.” It shows that his children were never taught to appreciate books as an art form, but rather as something they were forced to read and analyze. Prose analyzes reading lists from several high schools across the country to emphasize that it's not just her children and those around her struggling with this issue. She concluded that “What emerges from these photocopied pages… is a disconcerting sameness, unaffected by geography, region, or community size.” Kids are forced to read these boring novels and are never allowed to truly express their opinion on them. Questions are asked such as: How does this novel portray racism? How can you identify with this novel? These questions force students to conform to single-track thinking. Students forced to think inside boxed questions like these learn to hate literature. They look forward to reading a book because they are already told what they should understand within the novel. The prose supports its claim using evidence like this and then offers an alternative solution. Prose's solution is to force students to believe that books are a work of art. He says we must “[produce] and [become] a nation of avid readers of serious literature,” which means we must teach students today to appreciate literature and to have a desire to read. He highlights the importance of this by stating that "it is worth noting that books are among the few remaining forms of entertainment unsupported and intended to further the interest of advertising", meaning that no one is trying to sell you anything, and the text is not affected by anything. It's pure and simple, no media involved. Young adults who don't appreciate literature live in a world where they absolutely cannot escape the advertising industry. Its solution involves the..