Anna Quindlen School's Out For Summer Rhetorical Analysis

Sometimes, It Takes Two

Anna Quindlen’s take on child hunger in her essay School’s out for Summer could be seen as very interesting. Most times, people writing about this topic choose to look at the issue in foreign, low-development countries, but Quindlen decided to bring this topic right to America’s back door. By using pathos and logos, this author effectively makes an argument about how child hunger in America could be solved. Quindlen uses pathos in her essay to appeal to the emotions of her readers. She states that “some kids don’t get enough to eat, no matter what people tell themselves” (P5) to show that people just don’t believe in child hunger in America. She explains that one way you can help is to just know about it which causes people to want to learn more about and find ways to help. This whole essay is appealing to the reader by making them actually want to learn more about child hunger as a way to solve the problem. Readers feel a sense of obligation to these families who are struggling to make ends meet and that’s what the goal of the essay is. Another way Quindlen appeals to

“During the rest of the year fifteen million students get free or cut-rate lunches at school, and many of them get breakfast, too. But only three million children are getting lunches through the federal summer lunch program.”(P5) Readers react differently to certain appeals which is why this author chooses two to make sure the point gets across. Logos is for the readers that have a bigger reaction to numbers than appeals to emotion. Quindlen effectively uses statistics that fit nicely in with the rest of the paragraphs to have a nice development into anecdotes. While there are quite a few statistics in this essay, they don’t overpower the sense of pathos in this essay. They actually go nicely with fitting into the anecdotes and giving background information to better understand the