Blog 19: SOAPST

When reading a piece of literature it is important to analyze in depth every aspect and detail that it has, in order to fully understand the meaning the text is trying to convey. The SOAPST, (speaker, occasion, audience, purpose, subject, tone), of a piece is one of many that fall into this category of aspects that must be analyzed by the audience. For an example of such scenario, one can look at, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read”. Written by essayist and critic Francine Prose (speaker), “I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read” was published September of 1999 in Harper’s (occasion). Everyone (audience) reading this, will grasp Prose’s sassiness, familiarity, yet disappointment (tone)as she tries to inform and persuade (purpose) them ,of her critique and quality of required reading for high school students (subject). As much as these factors stand alone and are distinguished by a variety of things, they also rely on one another to make the text successfully effective. For instance, the audience can have an effect on how the speaker’s tone will sound. The speaker chooses diction and a tone for her voice depending on the specific audience and their knowledge of the topic being discussed. Also, another example can be how the tone must be chosen accordingly, depending on what kind of purpose the speaker has and what she may want to achieve. All in all, the reader should take into consideration all these factors, including choices made by the speaker, in order to be successful in comprehending the true meaning of the piece of literature, in this case being, “ I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read”.