"You Owe Me" by Miah Arnold

          Miah Arnold highlights the most significant moments in her career while working with child cancer patients in "You Owe Me", published in the Michigan Quarterly Review.  Arnold, who has worked at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas for over a decade, reflects on the traumatizing, yet deeply rewarding experience she has had teaching a writing class to a rotating cycle of child cancer patients, many of which succumb to to their disease. The context of this essay is a memoir about Arnold's time in the classroom and the emotional maturity she has acquired from this harsh setting. Miah Arnold's purpose in writing this essay is inform the audience of the short, incredible lives these children have lead and their ability to touch other's lives. Arnold's purpose is to share the joy and lessons of the frugalness of life, that the children have given her, with the world. The audience for whom the essay is written is vast. She aims to reach those who have taken life for granted. The rhetorical devices used in this essay are plentiful. The most frequent however, is the anecdote. Through the essay, she writes brief stories of the children that have most impacted her life. Pathos, or emotional appeal, is used all throughout the essay in order for Arnold to connect to her audience; "If you were a teacher, and you loved a boy who died, you might quit because you always knew you couldn't keep going after the death" (Arnold 34). The author strategically puts the reader in her place, to show the hardships that she has been through and the strength she must have to go back to work everyday. By allowing the reader to step into her shoes and absorb what she does everyday, proves the author has accomplished her purpose. She has successfully informed her audience of the near-magical lives of the children she has taught through pathos and strong anecdotes.

The Happy Life: The children Arnold worked with did not let their cancer slow them down. 

Picture Source:http://rakstagemom.wordpress.com/tag/pediatric-cancer/