Christina Anderson
Mr. Kingsley
Eng105
1 February 2012
Life Lessons from the Farm
Jessica Hemauer’s essay, “Farm Girl,” tells her life story of living on a farm through her eyes as ten-year-old child to the time of her early adulthood. The purpose of this piece is to teach the importance of life's responsibilities to children, mainly female, and young adults who may not be familiar with the challenges life can bring and to promote the benefits you can gain by overcoming those obstacles. Hemauer uses pathos, which appeals to emotion, logos, designed to engage our logic, and ethos, to prove its credibility, to convey that though growing up on a family farm was a struggle day-to-day, it was valuable life lesson because it shaped her into
For example, when Jessica considers being more involved in her school she realizes there is no possible way, by stating, “If I join a club that practices after school, I can’t participate. If I join a club that meets before school, I can’t attend meetings”(85). Hemauer uses logos in this specific case to clearly address the predicament that Jessica struggles with when it comes to responsibility and personal preference. This may be difficult for her audience to understand because, most likely, children or young adults that have had the privilege of growing up without having to make these sorts of decisions could not relate. Most often then not, the only thing that children have is free time. This further proves the author’s purpose for this essay because it demonstrates to children or young adults with less responsibility that, when it comes down to it, you will have to make the sacrifice of what you want for the responsibilities that you already have.
Furthermore, Hemauer uses logos later in her essay, to explain some of the benefits of having a large amount of responsibility at such a young age. This is shown when she is reflecting on her past experiences and how they have helped her today, by saying, “I have always had a challenging amount of responsibility, and I have learned to complete tasks in a timely fashion”(86). The audience will view this as a challenge and a possible goal to set for themselves by seeing her