Beginning of Essay
Maya Angelou has become a national celebrity since she read her poem, "On the Pulse of the Morning," at the inauguration of President Clinton. Before that, she was probably best known for her autobiographical s. What is it about Angelou's writing that is attractiv ....

Middle of Essay
.... from different cultures often have distinct rhetorical traditions on which they base their writing. One of the examples she used was the oral tradition of many African tribes which led to the adoption of the parable as a means of passing along information. Parable and storytelling became a teaching tool to pass along cultural and moral values from generation to generation. The slave experience in America transformed the oral tradition but did not destroy it, as African-American slaves adapted the old stories and developed new ones to fit in with the Christian religion to which they were being converted. The legacies of the pre-literate (oral) tr ....