Return to Unit Two:TR

TR Unit Two, Day 16 - Thursday, October 12

What we'll do today in class:

• Practice focusing and addressing an audience with their homework assignments
• Discuss other analyses of other media outlets and TV shows in the King, Rapping, and Douglas essays
• Review the types of function and possibilities for purpose and audience
• Emphasize and focus on Function for Viewer
• Consider how to develop their analyses
• Begin to develop their own audience.

Connection to Course Goals: Students will again look at how academic writing and thinking skills can be applied to larger cultural contexts. The activities on audience, purpose and focus show how they'll have to respond to the context for Essay 3, and they'll also examine this context in terms of what it will require for evidence.

1. WTL: What type of function(s) is each author doing? Find specific places in the text to support your claims about what type of analysis the authors do. Remember, they may be doing both! (5min)
2. Discuss the King and Rapping essays. Your goal in this discussion is to cover once again the three areas we've looked at in previous analyses - what type of function are they doing? What is their purpose/Context/audience? What do they use (and how effective is) their evidence?
• What types of function do we see here and where?
• What function does King think horror movies serve for a viewer?
• Does Rapping think Roseanne challenges any cultural myths?
• According to Rapping, what anxieties has Roseanne managed to address and calm in viewers?
• What is different about the way Roseanne handles issues such as homosexuality and parenting? Why is this difference important to Rapping?
• Who is the audience for King? For Rapping? What clues do you get about the audience? How do you know that's the audience?
• What is each author trying to achieve with their essay? What is their purpose?
• What types of evidence does each author use to support their claims about culture messages or anxieties? Find specific places where there are pieces of evidence…
• What types of evidence does each author use to support their claims about the TV show or horror movies? Find specific places where there are pieces of evidence…
• Are there any places that could use more evidence? Unsupported claims? What type(s) of evidence may still help strengthen this analysis? (15-20 min)

Transition

3. Group activity on Purpose/Focus/Audience with their homework assignments from last Thursday. The goals of this activity are to get them thinking about what choices they can make in terms of purpose and audience, and to have students consider how to state their focus in the form of a clear claim. We're trying to show how these homeworks may have to be changed if they were to be used for the actual Essay 3 assignment.

(NOTE: you will have read the homework assignments and selected two - one Function for Viewer and one Function for Culture - that you think will work well for this activity. Typically you'll want to look for homeworks that already have some focus, have used some evidence, but may have to be adjusted based on a new audience or purpose, or perhaps they aren't clearly focusing on Function for Culture or Function for Viewer, which they'll have to do to meet the context for essay 3. Make enough copies of each homework assignment for each student.)

• Divide the class into 4-5 groups, half will work on the Function for Viewer and half on the Function for Culture.
• Give each group the copies of the homeworks and a blank overhead.
• Then have each group complete the following tasks on their overhead:
• AUDIENCE: Having seen the talk-show, decide on an audience for the analysis. Who would you be writing to? Who needs to hear what this analysis has to say? Who might be interested in the analysis?
• PURPOSE: After you've chosen an audience, decide on a clear purpose. That is, what are you trying to do for this audience with your analysis? Why should they care about what you're saying?
• FOCUS: Now that you have an audience and purpose, write a claim that sets-up your analysis and purpose. You might find the claim as it exists in the homework writing, and after you've agreed on what that original claim is, consider whether it still fits with your audience and purpose. Does it need to be adjusted to address the audience more clearly? Does that claim give a clear sense of the overall purpose you're trying to achieve? If the claim needs revision to fit with this new writing context, go ahead and do that. Otherwise, write your own claim that works off of what the homework started with. In either case, make sure you have an overall claim/thesis that sets-up your analysis. (15 min)
4. Share the Overhead's to see what people came up with for Audience, Purpose, and Focus.
• Have the groups present their work.
• Ask them to emphasize the choices they made and how that affected later choices (did their choice of audience affect the claim? Did the purpose affect the claim? Etc.)
• Also ask if the class can think of any other audiences and purposes a writer might take from this homework -- remember we're trying to emphasize the ability to make choices within a writing context because there are always multiple ways to meet a context effectively. (10-15 min)

Transition: Now that you've given your homeworks a more defined purpose and audience, and developed a claim, lets look and see how those changes may have affected what you would need to use as evidence in your analysis.

5. Analyze the evidence needed for this analysis. Have the class look at what the groups came up with for A/P/F and what their original essay used as evidence, and consider the following questions.
• How do the changes in the context (the new purpose, focus, and audience) affect what you'd expect to see as evidence in this essay?
• Based on their purpose, focus, and audience, what types of evidence will they need and why?
• Will the evidence in the original homework still work?
• Would a writer need to add more evidence to meet this new context? What types of evidence might be needed to meet the new purpose and address the new audience effectively? (5-10 min)

Transition

6. Have groups write an introduction for their analysis on a second overhead, keeping in mind the audience, purpose, and focus they just came up with. Also remind them about the goals of an introduction - they should prepare the reader for what's to come in terms of main and sub-points, as well as give the reader a reason to read the essay. (10 min)
7. Share introductions:
• Ask the class to offer their assessment of how well the introductions set-up the reader for what's to come.
• Does the intro clearly address the audience the group identified? Where do you see it doing so?
• Does the intro clearly set-up the overall purpose for the essay?
• Does the intro clearly lay out the focus for the essay? (10 min)

If time…

8. Take 5 minutes to begin writing on possible audiences you might choose to address in your own analysis. You might think about the audience for your show, what general purpose you may have in mind for your analysis, etc.

Conclusion: We'll be moving on Tuesday toward activities focused around your own essays and helping you in choosing an audience, purpose, and focus appropriate for Essay 3.