Crafting Your Writing for Specific Audiences: A Mini Lesson Rhetorical Analysis Author's Choice

Crafting Your Writing for Specific Audiences: A Mini Lesson

Essential Questions

1. How does considering the rhetorical triangle shape what we write?
2. How do we write differently for different audiences?

Audience:  A Key Component of the Rhetorical Triangle

When a good writer writes, she keeps her audience forefront in her mind as she chooses her topic, her words, and even the details to include.  Consideration of audience is so important that it is only one of three elements in Aristotle's Rhetorical Triangle.

In order to write effectively, one must first know who (s)he is potentially writing for, considering their values, core beliefs, level of knowledge on the topic, and so forth, or, in other words, considering the demographics of their audience.  This mini-lesson will help you (or your students) understand just how important it is to write for specific audiences.

Following the instructions below to explore how we naturally code switch, shifting registers when writing for or talking to different people.

For example, I talk very differently with my skydiving friends at the dz than I do with my teacher friends at school.  You code switch, also.

Audience Mini Lesson Instructions

Analysis of Letters

After writing your letters, use the guide above to analyze them (alone or in groups depending on your situation) to extrapolate how our writing changes when our audience changes.  Below is the analysis from letters written in my class.  Did you notice the same or similar characteristics about the writing for each audience?

Sample Letters

After writing your letters, check out the sample letters below.  Or show these to your class as models/examples and/or to foster discussion if you are a teacher or writing workshop leader.

 I invite you to share your letters and your thoughts about how our writing does and should shift depending on audience in the comments.

Teaching Tools

Use this PowerPoint to direct this activity in your class if you would like.

This Google-friendly mini-lesson is available on TPT here.

I developed this mini-lesson for use in a variety of English classroom settings at the secondary level, primarily 9th and 10th grade English (all levels) including a sheltered English class for multi-lingual learners.

The slideshow and assignment is ready to plug and play in your digital classroom and includes a video clip showing an example of how audience impacts word choice, details, and actions, discussion questions for partners, key definitions, an analysis chart to complete, student examples, a letter writing activity, and more student examples.

This assignment has been a favorite in my English classroom for over 20 years! Students find it engaging and fun, and they learn a lot about writing and author's purpose in the process.

See more about the rationale behind this mini-lesson here.

Click here for a free teaching resource, and don't forget to follow my Teachers Pay Teachers Store, Faulkner English, for all the updates, freebies, and products.