AnnieC
Apr 10, 2011
Essays / Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter From Birmingham Jail - need help interpreting prompt! [12]
So my essay prompt is:
This letter has the ring of the oratory for which King was widely known and justly praised. Read passages aloud and note the ways that King appeals to his reader's ear (for example, with the balanced clauses of many of his sentences). How do the cadences of the King's prose help to make his point? Compare King's letter to the famous "I Have a Dream" speech he made in the same year. Although one is composed as a letter and the other was delivered as a stirring public address, what elements of language do they share?
I'm having trouble understanding the first question, regarding the 'cadences'. Doesn't cadence mean 'the rise and fall in pitch of the voice'? How does that apply to a written letter? I'm confused.
Also, what 'elements of language' is being referred to in the second question? Am I to refer to the rhetoric techniques used? That is, ethos, logos, and pathos.
Any help/guidance is much appreciated!
Thank you. x
So my essay prompt is:
This letter has the ring of the oratory for which King was widely known and justly praised. Read passages aloud and note the ways that King appeals to his reader's ear (for example, with the balanced clauses of many of his sentences). How do the cadences of the King's prose help to make his point? Compare King's letter to the famous "I Have a Dream" speech he made in the same year. Although one is composed as a letter and the other was delivered as a stirring public address, what elements of language do they share?
I'm having trouble understanding the first question, regarding the 'cadences'. Doesn't cadence mean 'the rise and fall in pitch of the voice'? How does that apply to a written letter? I'm confused.
Also, what 'elements of language' is being referred to in the second question? Am I to refer to the rhetoric techniques used? That is, ethos, logos, and pathos.
Any help/guidance is much appreciated!
Thank you. x