Cover letter
Phase 2 was an interesting prompt; it provided an opportunity to complete an essay. I had some difficulty with analyzing the text rhetorically; however, I liked Langston Hughes poem. Hughes provided a straightforward response to his professor’s prompt, I shared the same challenges as Hughes, when he was assigned the assignment, because I thought writing a rhetorical analysis paper would be difficult. Hughes poem creates the atmosphere of reading someone’s dairy, where they describe their inner thoughts and emotions about an environment where they may not belong to and feel excluded from people around him. By analyzing the emotional appeals in the poem, I gained an insight to Hughes understanding of racial tension in the 1950’s in an environment where he was not welcomed by other students. In this rhetorical analysis paper, I discussed the American pop culture, because my audience are exposed to American pop culture ranging from celebrities, musicians, food, fashion, and technological trends; such trends allow for interaction among Americans regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, location, and socioeconomic status. Hughes’s poem emphasized the shared American identity. The readers of his poem have been exposed to the American traditions and culture, and their understanding of race, gender, and politics would influence how they would relate to the purpose of the poem. Hughes appeal to pathos was to bridge the gap between him his identity as an African American and that of his white professor, which I believed set of that assignment. Using ethos in the text, showed my audience how similar Hughes’s life in comparison to many Americans; however, he did not believe he was that unique and could easily to interact with people that understand pop culture. Hughes was raised in the 1950’s and was influenced by a different era and issues; however, many Americans can relate to his challenges. Social media has become the driving factor for expanding the American pop culture, Hughes’s poems could have also been responsible for expanding literature in the American pop culture. I introduced the theory of implicit bias for logos, to strengthen Hughes’s view of white teachers may associate poor literacy with African Americans, which influences these teachers to refuse challenging African American students. So far, Hughes’s poem is one of my favorite poems, I can relate to his understanding of race in America and the expectations it has created for Black People.
