Recently, the UW System hosted a webinar on college readiness focusing on senior year English. Four English professors/instructors from different postsecondary institutions in Wisconsin shared their views regarding expectations for college writing. I took part in the webinar for obvious reasons, but I also wanted to compare their message with the writing resources we have available through the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. While I appreciated the overall vision of the webinar, especially because it was based heavily on the Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing, it is difficult to encapsulate college readiness for anything in one hour or less.
I perked up toward the end of the webinar when educators were allowed time to ask questions. There were not many, but one question in particular caught my attention because of the way the professor responded. A teacher asked what kinds of writing they expect students to be able to do in different college courses. In response, the professor talked about the idea that students should really be able to write for a wide variety of audiences, and to do this, they actually have to write for different authentic audiences. I threw a fist pump in the air and thought about all of the writers I have worked with over the last several months and their focus on audience.
Most of you have heard me gush (probably more than once) about Wisconsin Writes, a project that provides a glimpse into various Wisconsin writers’ processes as they plan, put a writing plan into action, revise, or edit—not in that order, and never in a linear fashion. Each writer is completely aware of audience for his/her writing whether or not they are published. Audience is a built assumption related to a writing process and drives so much of what they do. For example, while revising a poem, Wisconsin’s poet laureate Kimberly Blaeser, talks about having to do research to make sure her writing is historically accurate. She works at length on just one line of a poem she created to ensure its accuracy for readers.
Molly Magestro’s process includes thinking through whether or not her writing makes sense to readers. As she works on the sixth draft of her novel, she has to keep character details straight. She describes how changing a minor detail about one character, created repercussions in other parts of the book that she wasn’t expecting. She had to go back and revise so that her audience would not be confused.
Silvia Acevedo talks about gathering feedback related to different audiences. One audience can provide feedback on accuracy of the mythology she leans on in her story. Her main audience is kids, so when possible, she has them read her work for feedback to make sure they understand it and find it entertaining. Another audience is a writers group she is a part of for a different kind of critique. They offer feedback for revision purposes. She keeps all of these people in mind as she writes.
Authentic audience can change so much for students when they write. From our youngest students to those getting ready to move into college and/or careers, there are myriad audiences they can access for their writing in almost any genre or subgenre. Revisiting writing tasks in classrooms with an emphasis on audience can do several things. First, it provides a built-in purpose for writing. Second focusing on audience broadens the mode and media students might use to write: in most cases, the same task does not have to be done the same way. For example, a book review can be written with pencil and paper and turned in for a grade, but it can also be published inside library book covers for other people to access when choosing books. Students can write book reviews through a Goodreads account, or Amazon. They could even write and produce a podcast or other type of recording freely available for other people to access in the future in a space to collect the recordings. Each method accomplishes the writing goal for students, but establishes different audiences as well.
If our ultimate goal for students is to adjust the way that they communicate through writing based on different audiences or contexts, then they have to practice recognizing and writing in different contexts. Fortunately, we have a growing collection of author stories building on the Wisconsin Writes website offering windows into different writing contexts for students to see. Our next Wisconsin author, Patrick Rothfuss will be the first in the project to share his context for writing persuasively and the myriad audiences he has to keep in mind to reach his goal. His beard is also a reason for tuning in, along with his ancient keyboard that requires two adapters just to plug into his laptop. And goats. Lots about goats. Intrigued? Well, I know my audience.
Thank you so much for this post, Marci, and for your work on the Wisconsin Writes project! I found authentic audiences to be great motivation for reluctant writers--it is so important, as you said, to then vary the contexts and audiences to keep all engaged in purposeful writing!
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