Introduction

            Audience is key in writing anything. Without knowing whom your audience is, it’s hard to know what to write about. The content you decide to include as well as the way you get your content across will change depending on audience. Your genre depends on your audience, your rhetorical situation is unable to be composed without knowing your audience, and your purpose should be based on who your audience is. When given only a rhetorical situation, you can pick and choose your audience based on what genre you’d like to use. Although you can compose something without knowing who your audience is, it is better to know your audience to be able to capture readers in a way that would capture their full attention.

            You wouldn’t write about “The Little Engine That Could” when you’re writing an essay to help you get into Graduate school, and you most definitely wouldn’t write about your “Wildest Weekend Ever” in the essay for the SAT. The audience is key in picking a topic, because you want your readers to be interested in what they’re reading. Even when texting, you don’t use slang like “Lol” when texting a parent, and you don’t send a text to a friend with proper capitalization, and spelling. When you change your audience, sometimes it is likely that your genre will change as well, because the way you were speaking before might not attract your new audience. It mostly known that there are certain ways to speak to adults and there are certain ways you speak to your peers. There is also a difference in speaking to someone you know, and someone you don’t know.

            If your purpose is to spread awareness about an animal going extinct, you aren’t exactly trying to relate to a president of an accounting company. You want to relate to people who will be able to make a difference; parents, animal lovers, zoo owners. You wouldn’t want to appeal to them in a way they don’t find interesting, o in a way that would capture their attention and cause them to want to help, because then you’ll be unable to fulfill your purpose. It’s all about audience!

            Audience is imperative. When writing the wrong thing to the wrong audience, you fail to grab their attention, the audiences probably won’t even finish reading, and your purpose will never be noticed. Audience is the group of people you wish to explain something too. In our original piece we geared our vocabulary and syntax toward the professor and group of college students we knew would be viewing out paper. So our rhetorical situation was a formal written annotated bibliography with the audience being college students, the genre being annotated bibliography and the context being formal. As we decided on our new audience everything about our rhetorical situation began to change.

            Deciding on a class of kindergarteners was a challenge in itself because we needed to take out any vocabulary and ideas that a 5-6 year old could not understand. Due to the age of the audience we condensed the information into an engaging activity that would hold the attention of a kid. We made a bright poster with lots of different colors to captivate the audience and hold their attention to the poster. As we began to explain we used simple sentences that where short sweet and to the point. We reflected on past experiences we have each had with a younger generation and drew on the ideas that little kids relate more when you include things that they find interesting. We gave them examples such as: watching TV and reading a book so that they could fully understand that they are the targeted audience in that situation. Since the objective has completely changed so has our approach in presenting; the determining factor is who the audience is. Seeing that we have an audience of children who have not been exposed to specific ideas and words, everything has to be more generalized so that the concept is not lost in the mist of explaining the importance of audience not just in composing but in the daily life of an individual. Knowing whom your directing yourself to is important because it helps figure out the format in which you should express yourself and what is proper to use or not.

            After we decided to choose a class of kindergarteners and figuring out what obstacles we would encounter attempting to make them understand, it was established that it is important to set a mood for an audience. For these particular subjects we would choose things that are more kid related whereas, if we were explaining this to a crowd of folks fifty years and older we would have to present scenarios that they could relate to. With this is, the most challenging factor in making them understand would be how could they relate this to themselves, what key words or actions would we say or do in order for them to remember the meaning far beyond just people who are listening. The fact that we had to present to a different audience made us have to change our original method of presenting. We chose to get a poster of a yellow highlighter color to draw attention to their eyes. In order to keep their attention we cut out different shapes such as, a bomb, a thinking bubble, a flower, and a leaf, things they see throughout their daily routines. In the shapes we put words into their simplest form by asking what is audience, giving a clear definition of audience; people that you are explaining something to. We used examples such as sports and words to display how an activity can show commitment and endurance and words can display feelings vividly without pictures. The arrows indicated the cycle in which they were going to learn the material and how one question leads to an answer that turns into a variety of ways to showcase what the meaning really is.

            In the video we are going to enact a scenario where we are the kindergarten teachers. We will start by introducing the new class, then we will lead into the “today lesson” where we will ask them what they think audience is and ways they think it is represented. Knowing that at that age it is uncommon to know the variety of meanings a word can have. We will lead into a discussion and explain the variety of ways that audience could be presented and are currently being presented to them. There will be an example of us explaining that we are the teachers and they are the students, we are speaking to them and they are listening therefore, they are the audience that we are speaking to. With that example it may be easier for them to understand how audience works and how easy it can be.

            Now we have a better understanding of audience, genre and medium. The rhetorical situation of our first part of the assignment was altered by the audience of college students and the genre of annotated bibliography itself so it only made sense to choose the medium of writing a well-organized paper. On the other hand presenting to a group of kindergartners gave the composers more range in trying to pick out a way to capture their audience. We changed the audience which intern changed the genre to a more relaxed one which we decided to choose the medium of a poster. I now grasp the concept of how genre, audience, medium and rhetorical situation are all directly related to one another and cannot wait to put this knew knowledge to work in later writing endeavors.

 

Dirk, Kerry. "Navigating Genres." Wac.colostate.edu. N.p., n.d.     

         Web. 16 Jan. 2014.     <http://wac.colostate.edu/books/writingspaces1/dirk--navigating-genres.pdf>.

       Dirk starts off his essay with a joke about country music, after telling the joke he emphasizes how important it is for you to understand country music in order to get the joke. If country music was his genre, his would want his audience to be avid country music listeners. Although his essay is about genre, it also shows how important the relationship between genre and audience is. Choosing a genre that wouldn’t interest your target audience can cause you to have no audience at all. If your essay is titled “The Craziest Party of My High-School Career”, you aren’t going to interest an audience such as your grandmother. I choose my genre based on what the auddience would be interested in reading, otherwise your audience wouldn't necessarily be interested in your reading, and then you rpurpose wouldn't be accomplished. 

         He spends a paragraph explaining how he went about choosing his genre knowing that his audiences were college students. He did research, found out what would be interesting in their eyes to read about, how they learn, and how the tone of most essays written for college students was “primarily conversational.” He notes that most authors spoke in the essays not as authoritative figures but as peers.

         Dirk goes into how different genre is today opposed to in the past before technology. He explains how one person must think up their own way to do something, and therefore everyone after them just uses the previous thing as a reference. “Think about George Washington giving the first State of the Union Address. Because this genre was completely new, he had complete freedom to pick its form and content. All presidents following him now have these former addresses to help guide their response because the situation is now a reoccurring one” (Dirk 252). This is exactly what Dirk did when writing this essay, it was his first time writing to college students, and he researched and read prior essays, and then pulled from them what he should write about. Creating a new genre composed of many different genres. Remixing. However, Dirk creates a new genre after researching how to appeal to his audience. When a president gives his State of the union address, he is appealing to his audience of educated interested voters. Not high school freshman, or unregistered voters, they wont care what he has to say and it doesn’t matter if they hear it or not, because they can’t vote or don't care to. Dirk makes sure that he is going to be able to relate to his audience (college students) even if the genre he’s chosen may not be of his audiences highest interest.

         He explains how his audience (college students) should be realizing that they have written many different genres, depending on their audiences. He explains that, you would not “text” your professor saying “Hey Buddy”, and that you would not tell an inappropriate joke to your mom. If your purpose is to get money for lunch, you’re going to text your parents being nice and sweet. You wouldn’t text your friends asking for money, and normal friends usually convey friendship by being jokingly mean. If your purpose is to enforce stronger supervision in public schools, you want to read about how to relate to teachers and administration, and convey it in your letter. Purpose is an important component to genre, genre depends on audience, and depending on your purpose, you choose am audience to help accomplish it.

        

Collins, BIlly. "Commencement - Choate Rosemary 2001." Choate Rosemary Graduation.

       ChoateRosemary High School. Wallingford, Conneticut . 3 Jun 2001. Speech.

        In his commencement address to the graduating class at Choate Rosemary High School, Billy Collins first addresses his audience as a “group of relative strangers and some of their strange relatives.” Collins then discusses the fact that the group of individuals that asked him to be a speaker should have been nervous at first because of their understanding of the speeches professors usually give. Then Billy Collins goes on to explaining how a conventional commencement speech is usually given, and how he doesn’t think it’s best for him to follow such conventions. Collins the goes on to discuss the misconception that people need to speed up to keep up with the flow of information. He provides a solution in that people should slow down and provide some gratitude where it is due. The last point the Billy Collins makes in his commencement address is a comment about memorization and how current technologies deaden the need for memory because everything can be accessed within seconds.

        In the opening of his speech Billy Collins goes over the way a conventional commencement address is given and how there is usually an elaborate metaphor of this Road that has been leading up to life and how the past is behind you and only the future lies ahead. Finally he closes that part of his speech by saying he is going to avoid most of these conventions as possible. I think Collins put this information into his speech to elicit a sigh of relief from his respective audience of which many had presumed he would follow such conventions. Collins might have also included this information to grab the attention of such an audience as they might be intrigued by what he could possibly do instead. Collins was helping the audience develop interest in his piece because of his choices. Collins does not explicitly say how he will get his audience to go along with him but by asking questions like “Why would I ask you to slow down?” Simple questions like these will keep his audience of students intrigued to his speech the whole time. Collins speech is mostly focused around the idea that everything is at your fingertips and how human beings are in a constant blur of speed and information that no one takes anytime to just enjoy the life on this earth that we have been given. To really connect with his audience and appeal to their lives he includes real world examples of this acceleration, such as “cursing at your computer for taking four seconds instead of half a second to fetch a little stick of information for you,” This should appeal to any person sitting in his audience because everyone had experienced that sort of anger before when things take longer than needed. Collins assumes in his piece that his whole audience has access to technology, this is safe to assume because of the students he is addressing are in the 21st century. When Collins talks about paying attention, but not just to what goes on inside a classroom, he is appealing to the logic of the audience, that it is logical once in a while to stop and take a break from all this constant speed and just enjoy what is surrounding us. In conclusions Billy Collins has widen my perspective on my idea of audience. I think when considering an audience one should consider the emotions and actions they want to elicit from an audience. I think appealing to emotions plays a big part in the commencement address as well as most rhetorical situations because every audience has emotions and a way to get them to really connect with what you’re writing is to get them angry, happy, or sad. The best writing comes when you create the emotional connection with your audience.

 

Kelley, Brian, Hubbard, Tyler. Stay Here’s to the Good Times 99.1 WKYK: Florida, Jacksonville, 19 Jan 2014. Radio.

        The song “Stay” by Florida Georgia line has become one of the United States favorite country singles. The song is written in the view of the male character and he is losing time he has to get the love of his life back. The song goes on in the second verse saying “without your touch I'm not gonna last. (I know you know that I need ya just to carry on) It feels like my walls are caving in.” The narrator of the song is seems to believe that without this one person nothing is worth it anymore and he feels claustrophobic. The narrator also has a revelation in the song, he now knows he was treating his love wrong and that it was not her fault it was his. At the end of the song when the chorus repeats it’s much quieter because it has really hit him now that he is losing the one person that means the most to him.

        The song “Stay” is in the country genre and that might help in the understanding of the song when analyzing its audience. According to Dirk “Country songs tend to tell stories, they often have characters that develop throughout the song, country songs are often depressing, people losing jobs, lovers and friends.” The song Stay by Florida Georgia Line is a primary example of this and it uses these objectives to appeal to the audiences emotions. Audience is all about appeal, who or what you are trying to appeal to. The lyrics in the song by Florida Georgia Line appeal to every emotion possible. The audience can relate to their heartbreak because the people have had the heartbreak as well. In the opening lines of the song “I’d sell my soul just to see your face, and I’d break my bones just to heal your pain” Is appealing to the emotions of its listeners by describing painful situations in correlation with the pain you feel when you lose someone you care deeply about. “The days are cold the nights are long, I can’t stand to be alone, and please know this is not your fault,” These lyrics help the audience understand and compare the own situations with losing someone and how those first nights of being alone actually feel.

        In conclusion, the song “Stay” by Florida Georgia Line has helped me grasp a better understanding of audience because it taught me that audience is not only just about the people you are reaching out to its about keeping them reading or in this case listening. To do that you need to appeal to them. Whether you are appealing to their emotions or their logic or even the values it’s appealing to the audience that makes songs, books and even essays great.

 

Anzaldua, Gloria. "How to Tame a Wild Tongue."

        In How to Tame a Wild Tongue, Anzaldua generally states that those who have attempted to control her tongue or punished her in any way have insulted how she expresses herself. In a sense it has demoralized the greatness of different tongues and has brought to attention the question of how the societal norms are not quite open minded about accepting change. She speaks about her life and what it was like to grow up in her shoes, not only did she feel as if her culture in essence was denied but also her gender; in the usage of her language they often rob women of their presence by ending words and phrases in a masculine plural. Throughout the entire writing there is this feeling as if she is trying to break away from this tradition that has held her prisoner for so long. Anzaldua makes her audience acknowledge the wrong doings that have been done in hope of change. She gives a few examples of what she saw that was wrong, 1) in school she was not allowed to speak Spanish and if so she was penalized 2) her mother pushed it upon her to speak English fluently to the point where no accent could be detected. Anzaldua did not really have a choice to practice what she thought was more important in her life, instead she was practically forced to conform to choice no made by her.

        Anzaldua saw it as important to remind those who are speak different languages to identify with those language, after all, they are ways in which they communicate in. There should be no shame because it represents the importance of this value to those people. Then she states eight different languages that Chicanos use which shows the variation and significant differences within one language that has branched out into the Spanish they speak. She goes on by describing the difference of the vowels and how the variation has causes different ways to pronounce them, also how her specific language has borrowed English words, this describes the development in Spanish. She states that ‘Chicanas’ have this fear of speaking to ‘Latinas’ because of their disapproval, which inevitably may lead to the disapproval of them as just people or if women are in a party with other Chicanos they will speak English to avoid being made fun of for not speaking proper Chicano Spanish. This written piece by Anzaldua is about how the tradition of silence needs to be broken and that the fear shall no longer exist, she thinks audience as the essential piece to stop the continuing tradition. Anzaldua thinks of language as a definitive factor in a person’s life, because it is a form of identification. Identification has to do with accepting and valuing all aspect that make up all the characteristics of an individual, not everyone has to necessarily like them.

        Anzaldua audience is clearly stated when she says “Yet the struggle of identities continue, the struggle of borders is our reality still. One day the inner struggle will cease and a true integration take place.” She speaks to Chicanos who hide in the shadows because they fear to show their identities due to disapproval, she states the borders as the limitation the restrictions by which they live by day by day. Yet she reveals the hope that remains that one thing will lead to the next meaning she will be accepted and able to live in a society that does not discourage her identity. Anzaldua’s audience are those who like her have experience societal boundaries pushed against them forcing them to conform and adapt to others standards whether that is what they wanted or not. This demonstrated the lack of choice and lack of confidence in one’s indentity; that could have consisted of accepting yourself and not worrying if others do. She speaks to her audience by showing the resentment she held, the stories, and information of what this has expressed within her to finally speak up and say that this is no longer acceptable, that in order to see change one must seek it by standing up and doing what has not been done, breaking the traditional silence in order to allow this integration to take place.

 

Trujillo, Alejandro. "You Aren't Born to Please." Facebook, 11 December 2012.

        In this modern world full of means by which one can communicate and express thoughts with just a click of a button. Facebook provides people to write their thoughts, actions, and feelings instantaneously. For example, Alejandro Trujillo posted a thought that leads to one personal insight about one’s life and purpose. It typically puts into question what one’s solid purpose is in life, what is their ultimate mission. It connects to past experiences and memories one has collected over time and all the emotions that have been kept inside that must come out. When he says, “you aren’t born to please and satisfy others,” he is clearly stating that one’s mission should not be to complete another’s dream nor live a life that someone planned for, or live a lie to protect those that you love but to become and be yourself which will result in one’s own personal satisfaction. With that said, he creates this idea that when you are born you represent a new chance, a chance to write your own story not have someone write it for you or rewrite anyone else’s. It is the opportunity to be and live to the expectation and standards that you have created for yourself and not limiting yourself to the traditional societal norms.

        He then continues to express his thought by symbolizing the essential questions “Was I happy or did I make others happy?” Which is another way of determining whether what one did throughout ones’ personal life actually pleased others at the cost of personal happiness or if one took a path as unusual as it may seem and live a life of choice a life of contentment. At the end of the day the person who is in every scene of everyday in oneself, so that is the person that should call the shots, make the decisions, take action and own up to the most important role. That is taking responsibilities for the ups, the downs, the mist of confusion and doubt because the certainty that one exhibits reflects whether one is the owner of one’s happiness or not.

        This post was meant for every friend of Alejandro’s to see and hopefully reflect upon, the audience are people that he is at least acquainted with on Facebook, but this post is realistically for any person that can relate to the idea of potential ownership over themselves. The audience is clearly those who have to question themselves in order to find out if the life they have been living is a life with the single purpose to show others that they can dictate what you do or say, to prove to be what people wanted you to become, or to give to others the satisfaction to watch you fail. If you are determined to not fit into conformity and to stand out by becoming the ruler of your life, your happiness, and your dreams this post was meant for you. It was meant for you to analyze your personal situation and realize what you needed to better your emotional and mental state and figure out what steps you must take to get there. It was meant for you because you have felt uncertainty about your life choices and choose not to anymore.

        The audience can take this either as a relief signal, as if it were a sign of words that came together to indicate the reshaping and molding of one’s life or the perpetuating truth that one can continue to ignore for as long as one can until one reaches that breaking point that is explainable by all the continuing trash that you may have placed on your own shoulders. Ultimately it is used as an optional tool to get out of the predicament you may find yourself in or to hide from the truth which some fear in a further web of lies, only to find yourself sinking deeper and deeper in the hole you made yourself. This can also be interpreted as a path that leads to a retreat that one uses to live a life full of standards they create which can be considered selfish.