Older Audience - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2oUmTlK8DdYMEFOZ0tCMVpGRzg
Punctuating The Transformation of Genres
The
teaching of punctuation can be transformed into certain genres with modifying perceptions,
which can effectively educate their specifically targeted audience. According
to Losh and Alexander, they explain that for a writer to adapt their language
to their targeted audiences requires the consideration of multiple identities
(moves) according to the expectations of different social contexts (Losh and
Alexander). For my Writing Project 3, I have chosen the scholarly article “Teaching
Punctuation as a Rhetorical Tool,” written by John Dawkins, who deeply examines
the system of the functional punctuation rules and patterns towards his
audience of students to improve their writing with use of rhetoric tools. I
have converted this scholarly piece into genres that consist of an English classroom
worksheet activity, targeting children aged eleven to thirteen-year-olds in middle
school, as well as a ‘5 Ways To…’ advice article consisted of tips on how to improve
cover letters, directed towards thirty-year-old adults who forgot the basic principles
of punctuation learnt in school. The transformation from a scholarly article
into the two different genres is created with use of the respected genre
conventions, as well as the incorporation of moves that manipulate the exigence, style
of format, and certain material to efficiently modify the perspective to the
targeted audience.
During
the process of transforming my scholarly articles, I created my two genre
pieces based on rhetoric conventions. Initially, scholarly articles like
Dawkins’ present typical conventions consisting of formal structure and
language, sub-headings, citations, hypotheses, data, introduction, results, and
analysis, especially due to his educated audience mostly comprising of college
students and professors. As a classroom of middle school children, these
conventions obviously differ for ‘fill-in-the-gap’ activities as it consists of
informal language, instructions, one-line sentences, bullet or numbered points,
and a word bank. These conventions help these middle school children to use
their knowledge, typically aimed for them to carefully choose a word (in this
case types of punctuations) best suitable in a sentence and understand why it
is appropriate.
Furthermore,
the scholarly article also visibly differs conventions to the online TheMuse (an online career resource that offers background
information for job opportunities) ‘5 Ways To…’ articles as they tend to contain
conventions that have an informal structure, and include a topic title,
author’s name, visual images, numbering of the five main points, and a short
description of the main points. These conventions of this article allow easy,
understandable reading for older adults. In addition to the conventions shown
in my two genres, rhetoric moves have been made to specifically boost
engagement from each of my targeted audience.
The change in the exigence– circumstance that pursuits a response (Carroll)– between the genres was vital as the information provided must be beneficially appropriate for each targeted audience. Dawkins’
exigence in his article is to educate his
targeted audience of college students and professors, the five most effective punctuations as rhetoric tools for
writing; Sentences and Independent Clauses, Raising and Lowering, Multiple
Independent Clauses, Punctuation with Coordinator, and Pedagogy. For the
younger audience, the Fill-In-The-Gap Punctuation worksheet will be to educate
the incorporation of basic punctuation in the initial learning stages of writing. On the
other hand, the “5 Way To…” article’s exigence will be to provide support to
older adults who either did not attend high school/college or forgot the basic
punctuation functions, for rewriting their cover letters for a new job
position.
Throughout
my transformation process of my two genres targeting a different audience, I made
moves (author’s conscious decision to purposefully guide reader) to focus on the
style of format to effectively engage the readers. For my younger audience, I
included bolded, colored, and funky various fonts, as well as a written included challenge
to capture and engage these students to completely participate in the activity.
Ages around eleven to thirteen years are stereotyped to go through “too cool
for school” stage (state children go through to act cool to gain their peers
attention and admiration). I personally chose to include the written challenge
“first three to complete all correct answers wins a chocolate,” because these
children need a motivation to complete work, intentionally causing them to try
harder.
On the
other hand, for the older audience I kept the website article one page, with the easily-read font 'Times New Roman'. Adults
are shown to increase eventful and tiring aspects in their lifestyles, from
working all day/night, attending social events, to raising a family. Therefore,
I thought it was necessary to make this article short yet informative to
quickly teach the necessities included in a cover letter. I also made the move
of increasing the font of the five main tips to further catch the readers’
eyes. These moves benefits most adults, as they tend to get bored of lengthy
pages worth of information and usually search for straight-to-the-point
material, especially on a topic for enhancing writing cover letters.
In continuation, according to Scott McCloud, choice of image is part of five focuses that contribute to clarity, persuasion, and intensity of information for an audience (McCloud). I included visual images in both genres for its purposes– incorporated Cartoonized characters of punctuation marks around the worksheet to brighten the worksheet activity engagement for the children, as well as a man typing in a typewriter in the advice article, to add humor as older adults are stereotyped to be “outdated” in education and technology. Colorful and humorous visuals are used to bring the writer’s message to life and support their claim with convincing evidence.
Addtionally,
I made moves modifying the information to transform the scholarly article into helpful
and appropriate information for the certain age groups. Supported by authors
Losh, Alexander, and McCloud, it portrays the importance for authors’ choice of
flow and word, to help readers navigate their conveyed and valuable ideas (Losh
& Alexander, McCloud). For these young children, I degraded the five main
punctuations into “simpler” versions because at this age, they start their
initial learning of writing. Eleven to thirteen-year-olds must learn the basic
functions of punctuations; therefore I have used only the basic punctuation
marks (comma, period, dash, question mark, exclamation mark, and colon) used in
the Dawkin’s scholarly article. I personally added quotation marks, as I
thought it was necessary and appropriate to teach, as children this age also
begin creative story writing. This genre of a fill-in-the-gap classroom
activity is a great way to reinforce vocabulary in a variety of contexts, necessary
for learning in an English class. I bullet-pointed each sentence on various topics
in order for the students to wholly understand the suitable punctuation marks.
As for
the older audience, I manipulated the scholarly article into a more pop-culture
article style. The ‘5 Ways to Revamp Your Cover Letter’ is more broadly
searched so I incorporated that correct punctuation was detrimental as it
implies high-level education intelligence as one aspect to improving a cover
letter. I included the information on “Multiple Independent Clauses” (Dawkins),
teaching them the effective emphasis, and the importance of organization and
separating sentences instead of majorly clustered words. I made sure to keep
the language broad and applicable for them. As Dawkin’s articles focuses on a research
about Punctuation, I had to eliminate the analytical rules and patters, as these
targeted adults would find this information irrelevant. However, I aimed to
refresh the information to adults as they may have forgotten the essential
aspects in writing a cover letter.
Transforming
John Dawkins’ scholarly article, ‘Teaching Punctuation as a Rhetoric Tool’ into
an English classroom worksheet activity towards a younger audience, in addition
to a “5 Way to Revamp Your Cover Letters” for my older audience, was done by operating
information from the scholarly article into the fitting genre conventions, as
well as conducting specific moves to manipulate the author’s exigence, the style
of formatting, and selecting appropriate information to especially engage the
targeted age group. In process of WP3, not only did I deepen my understanding
of genre conventions, but I also expanded my knowledge of the general concept
of why an author makes a move– to identify my decisions and reasoning between
my created genres, to specifically engage the targeted younger and older
audience. These created genres must be adapted to the readers and be contained
with suitable information for their complete understanding of the context.
Works Cited
Carroll, Laura Bolin. “Backpacks vs.
Briefcases: Steps Toward Rhetorical Analysis.” Writing Spaces:
Readings on Writing, Volume 1, 2010.
Dawkins, John. "Teaching Punctuation As A
Rhetorical Tool." College
Composition and Communication 46.4
(1995): 533-48. Print.
Losh, Elizabeth M., and Jonathan Alexander.
"Spaces For Writing.” Understanding Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide to Writing.
Bedford/St. Martin's, 2013. 1-22. Print.
McCloud, Scott. “Writing With Pictures.” Understanding
Comics: The Invisible Art. New York. HarperPerrenial, 1994.
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