Description

There are two parts to this proposal. The goal is to introduce your audience (and therein your rhetorical situation) and to show your process of narrowing down your genres to four potential genres for your Composition in Two Genres project. One of the genres should be a written genre (newspaper, magazine, blog, etc.)

Requirements:

• Part One: Report on your rhetorical situation: 1) What is your topic statement and what conclusion did you arrive at in your inquiry-based essay? 2) What audience are you addressing? 3)What is your purpose? 4) What obstacle are you responding to? 5) Which genres do your audience value most?
• Part Two: What are ten possible genres that pertain to your audience? Which four of those genres are the most apropos? For those four, what stylistic features will appeal to your audience? For those four, what familiarity do you have with the genre and what will you need to learn to be a successful creator of that genre?
• MLA Formatting

 

Assignment

Part One

• My topic statement is what effects does social media have on the development of high school teens in the U.S.? The conclusions I reached were social media mainly affects teens negatively. If teens constantly use social media, the positives would be far outweighed, and it is better if teens just limited their usage altogether.
• The audience I am addressing is high school teenagers in the U.S.
• My purpose is to advise and inform teens about the negative effects social media has on their development. From here, I can advise them on how to stop these platforms from taking over their lives and using them constantly.
• The obstacles I am responding to is how I can grab the attention of my audience. It must be something they will not get bored of and keep them engaged to the end. Also, another obstacle will be how social media provides a few benefits to the development of teens for their identities.
• The genres my audience value most are ones that are straight to the point or with bright images to catch their attention. Such genres can include straightforward pieces of writing, artworks, and ironically social media posts.

 

Part Two

Possible genres:

• Instagram story/post
• Painting
• Blog
• News article
• Flyer
• TikTok video
• Poem
• Comic strip
• Magazine
• Personal essay

 

The four genres that are the most apropos to my topic are the painting, blog, news article, and Instagram post. The stylistic features that will appeal to my audience from these four include:

• Painting – color and tone to help tell the story, an overall message, texture, space, and composition, and visual elements within the painting itself
• Blog – personalized and stylized to my own personality, header, and subheadings, images or videos, relevancy, conversational, not be too long, and a strong call to action
• News article – headline, introduction, images, quotes, and be conversational but formal
• Instagram post – visuals, be authentic, have a strong caption, hashtags, straight to the point, and carousels (multiple images)

The familiarity and what I will need to learn to be a successful creator of this genre include:

• Painting – As an artist myself, I am familiar with this genre. Also, taking art classes in high school and art history in college has helped me gain more skills and things I need to include. The main thing I will need to be a successful creator of this genre is to know what elements to include and how to do so. Composition has always been something that has given me trouble and in choosing this genre I can practice more.
• Blog – Since I avidly use Tumblr, I have a relative understanding of how a blog post is written and how personalized they usually are. However, I have never written a blog post myself. Also, most of the posts I have come across are not written like a “typical” blog post and are only really a few sentences. To be a successful creator of this genre I will have to find blog posts that are more thought out and not just a quick blurb. From this, I can learn more about how blogs are and how I can structure my own post.
• News article – I am familiar with this genre mainly because of school. Having read enough of this genre has helped me familiarize myself with what to include and leave out. But to be a successful creator I will have to really investigate what features make up this genre. I have never written a news article myself and will have to look back to ensure that I have the proper structure.
• Instagram post – I am familiar with this genre and have spent enough time on Instagram to know the basics of an informational post. But like the other genres, I have not done a post like this myself. Therefore, I will need to look deeper and figure out what features do and do not work. From here I can include them in my own post in a way that will be appealing to teens.