Day 3: Audience and Purpose Analysis

Objectives:
Students will be able to 
a.  Name and explain the steps of the writing process.
b.  Discuss the different aspects involved in writing for an audience.
b.  Analyze the characteristics of different audiences.
c.  Write persuasive ideas for an intended audience.


I. The Writing Process

II.  Video clips and discussion
Make sure you read the Discussion Questions below before watching the videos. V
Video 1  The Three Little Pigs
 Video 2  A Dairy Tale:  The Three Little Pigs
 Video 3  Christopher Walken's Three Little Pigs
 

Discussion Questions
 *Who is the audience for each video clip?
 *What is the purpose of each video clip?
 *What are some differences you observed from the three versions of The Three Little Pigs?


III.  Successful business writing begins with an in-depth audience analysis. You need to anticipate your audience's needs, know their background and potential questions and address them in your writing. The following questions may help you analyze your audience better:
*What is the background of your audience?  (e.g. social status, education, experience)?
(This determines the tone of writing, how much detailed information to include in the message, etc.)
*What are the needs/interests of your audience?
( This determines which information to (de) emphasize, how to maximize/minimize cooperation/objection, and which information should be presented first.)
*What does your audience already know about the message you are communicating? What kind of questions will they have on your topic?
(This determines which information should be included/excluded/elaborated.)
*How does the audience feel about the topic beforehand?  (Agree, neutral, disagree)  How will they respond to your message?
(This determines which information to emphasize/de-emphasize.)
*Which aspects of your message would particularly appeal to your audience? 
(Emphasize the most positive elements of your message.)
*Which objections might you expect your audience to have (if they are likely to disagree)?
( De-emphasize or overcome negative elements of your message by using qualifiers/hedging.)
 

 IV. Types of Audience
 PPP 

V.  Practice
 a. Get in groups of 3.  Each group will be assigned a different audience. 
Your mission is
To persuade your audience to eat at McDonald's instead of at another restaurant.  Don't invent qualities for McDonald's; base your argument on what you know.
b.  Use the questions in section III for audience analysis and come up with at least THREE main ideas to persuade your assigned audience.  You may like to produce a simple power point presentation incorporating some visual aids as an effective means to persuade the target audience.
c.  Present your ideas to the class.
Here, the rest of the class pays attention and after the group has finished guess who the intended audience of the presentation was and discuss the effectiveness of the presentation.

V. Homework: None


Source:
Kim, J. (2012). ESL 505 TA Resources. University of Illinois.
 http://esl505ta.blogspot.com/2012/06/day-3-audience-and-purpose.html