Research and Audience Assignment (major assignment for Unit 3)
In this assignment, you will research an issue that you feel is important. Your job will be to identify two different audiences/communities that are impacted by your issue and then to write two different messages (one to each audience) that either persuades each audience of a particular outcome that should happen to resolve your issue OR that educates them about the dynamics of your issue. If you choose to educate your audience, think about your goal – why is education important in this context; what will new knowledge bring? Be sure to have a goal in mind when writing to each audience – what do you want to get them to do, think, or feel – and why?
You should have at least 5 references. This is a research assignment – do research to better understand your issue and what’s at stake.
Together, both messages should be 1000-1500 words.
Things to keep in mind:
• Your issue should be specific. If you are interested in researching and finding out more about immigration, for example, your issue could be a certain immigration policy that you would like to see changed and why; if your topic is vaping, you could talk about how celebrities should not endorse smoking because of its impact on teenagers.
• Your issue should be something with real consequences today – otherwise, what’s the point of you writing to your audiences?
• You should choose to write each message in a genre (email? Letter? Speech?…?) that makes sense for your audience. Be sure to write the imagined place of publication for your message to each audience.
• You should write in the tone and with the amount/type of evidence that is consistent with the genre you choose. But be sure you have at least five sources!
