Example

Dress Rehearsal

You’re walking down the hall during passing period, trying to hunt down your math teacher, but it’s tough going. Not only are there way too many people jockeying for position at senior corner, but they all look alike too. These days, it’s hard to separate the students from the teachers because they all seem to be dressed the same.

You take this complaint to sociology. During class, you explain your problem to your classmates, and your teacher, heaven forbid, takes your situation and turns it into a writing assignment. Can’t she ever just leave it alone? The task is to write an essay in which you discuss the current “blurring” of generations. Your audience will be your teacher and classmates, and your purpose is to explain ways in which adults and teens are becoming more alike. Even. As. We. Speak.

With your elbow partner, you brainstorm ideas. There’s dress, of course. That’s what you see in the hallways. Yesterday, Ms. Marvin was explaining the Ides of March when she started using teenage slang to help you understand. Last week, you saw a really hot car on the freeway, and you were stunned to see that the driver was some fifty-something dude!

You have three ideas so far: language, dress, and behavior. These seem to be the ways adults have become adolescent. Your ever-wise partner reminds you that some teenagers talk and act like adults, too. You think about that play you read in English class, A Doll’s House. In the 1800s, there were topics that never made their way into the conversation… things like, you know, s-e-x. Today, you can learn all about it on the Internet or in the lunch room. You can learn about ANYTHING on the Internet today. Television, too, introduces kids and teens to some adult-like situations.

You note that today’s youth have jobs in order to buy their own clothes, pay for car insurance, purchase junk food, etc. In your dad’s day, as he likes to point out, this was very uncommon. At your job, you are expected to speak with customers in a mature manner, and you find yourself dressing like the store manager who is, uh, at least 35.

Having taken notes on your ideas, you begin to structure your essay. You’ll use the criteria you have come up with (language, dress, behavior), and you’ll develop them with specific examples. Next, you’ll need to decide how you want to organize your essay: perhaps by writing about each criterion, moving back and forth between age groups, or by writing about each age group separately, navigating from one criterion to the next. If this sounds like an essay of comparison, DING DING…you’re right.

Keep your audience (your classmates and teacher) and your purpose (to inform about the “blurring” of generations) in mind as your draft your essay (the task). You’ll have plenty of time tonight after supper to get the assignment finished since your dad will win the battle for the Xbox. Again.

That’s a Wrap

Students have considered task, purpose, and audience for a fairly traditional rhetorical context here. A next step might be to ask them to use the same information, but write for a different audience or in a different genre (they can’t always write academic papers for their teacher). You also might change the purpose from informative to argumentative and ask students to take a stand on this issue. The key is to give students experience with how a different rhetorical context will affect their choices as writers, even if the information is the same. An important step is for them to reflect on the process; get them to think about their thinking.

Source:

Thomas, W. LaVerne. “The Blurring of Adolescence.” Sociology: The Study of Human Relationships. Austin: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 2008.

Drill

Complete the chart 

Fill in the chart below with appropriate descriptions of how you would approach writing for each of the tasks, purposes, and audiences given. The first has been completed for you.

Answers will vary: