Final Major Assignment #1
In writing, audience, genre, and purpose are clear components to a complete, clean, and well thought out piece of writing. I have chosen to analyze the Billy Collins, Commencement Address at Colorado College, Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and Gloria Anzaldua, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”. The author’s choice of audience, genre and purpose will drive my analysis of the three readings but, before getting into the analysis, I want to discuss purpose, genre, and audience.
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The first reading I will analyze is the Billy Collins, Commencement Address at Colorado College. Blau and Burak say that purpose is what you are trying to accomplish.(Page 3) Collins’ purpose of writing to the graduates is to inspire them to slow down and live your life, do not focus too much on the future while you are living in the present. Collins says, “May you graduates waken every morning to have the supreme pleasure of being yourselves.”(Paragraph 29) Here, he is saying he hopes that the graduates won’t focus on what’s next and how they can be better, just to focus on you now and not try to rush things.
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By knowing his purpose of writing, he now knows his audience. Collins’ audience is the graduating class, their families, friends, and staff of Colorado College in 2008. “President Celeste, Distinguished Faculty, Staff, Parents, Relatives, Friends and, most importantly, the 2008 graduating class of Colorado College.”(Paragraph 1) By knowing his purpose and who his audience is, he can now know the genre of his writing. The genre is a Commencement Address. This is his genre because he states it a couple of times while speaking. “This is not the first commencement address I have ever given.”(Paragraph 3)
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Blau and Burak say that genre is what type of text you are writing (Page 3) and Martin Luther King Jr’s, “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, is inspiring and incisive. MLK is a very inspiring person and speaker. “So, we decided to go through the process of self-purification. We started having workshops on nonviolence and repeatedly asked ourselves the questions, “are you able to accept the blows without retaliating?” “Are you able to endure the ordeals of jail?””(Paragraph 6) This goes to show how inspiring MLK is. He talked to the people and he made them understand why they cannot be violent in return and cannot turn to violence when you see other people do the opposite. While being inspiring, he was also incisive, “but since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I would like to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.”(Paragraph 1) MLK said this in his very first paragraph of his letter. He knew by getting right to the point it would catch your attention.
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By showing his audience he also brought out his purpose for writing. MLK’s purpose is to tell people about injustice in Birmingham, Al and to respond to the people saying his protests were violent because of the protesters. MLK says, “My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without legal and nonviolent pressure.”(Paragraph 8) Here, he is rebutting the statement that the protesters became violent, he is saying he knows for a fact that every gain he has made was because he was legal and nonviolent. While refuting claims he also decides to make it known of the racial discrimination in Birmingham, “Then came the opportunity last September to talk with some of the leaders of the economic community. In these negotiating sessions, certain promises were made by the merchants—such as the promise to remove the humiliating racial signs from the stores.”(Paragraph 2) He continues by saying, “Its ugly record of police brutality is known in every section of the country. Its unjust treatment of Negroes in the courts is a notorious reality. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any city in this nation.”(Paragraph 2) He is trying to say that what is happening in Birmingham is wrong and there needs to be made a difference so that injustice based on race will soon disappear because everyone is equal and there should not be segregated restaurants and stores. Lastly, audience. MLK’s obvious audience are the people he is writing the letter to. He addresses the letter to, “My Dear Fellow Clergymen”(Paragraph 1) but I also believe his audience was the people of Birmingham, because he talks a lot about what is going on in the city and he is sharing the stories of what he participated in. He is trying to open the eyes of the people, to show them the injustice that is going on that not everyone sees.
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Lastly, I want to analyze Gloria Anzaldua’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.” Blau and Burak say that the audience is for who you are writing for (Page 3). Anzaldua’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue, focuses on the audience. Throughout the reading, I noticed two different audiences she was speaking to. As I began reading, I thought her audience was anyone who was willing to read her writing but as I continued reading, I began to discover the audience she was trying to reach ended up being fellow Mexican Americans as well as non-Mexican Americans. In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” Anzaldua talks about the social prejudices she struggled with growing up as a Mexican American and tries to open the readers’ eyes to what she faced along with other Chicano students.
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She explained how, “at Pan American University, I and all Chicano students were required to take two speech classes. Their purpose: to get rid of our accents.”(Page 34), where the university would try to take away the students’ accents by making them go to not one, but two speech classes in hopes that would “fix” them. Anzaldua also mentions the social insecurities people raised in the Hispanic culture had about their languages and traditions along with how they face racism in their own country. Anzaldua had a purpose behind her writing. She wanted to show the prejudices of people against Mexican Americans. She shares her memories of grade school to show us how she personally faced prejudices early on. “I remember being caught speaking Spanish at recess – that was good for three licks on the knuckles with a sharp ruler.” (Page 34) She was not allowed to speak her native language and would get in trouble for correcting her teacher on how to properly pronounce her name, “I remember being sent to the comer of the classroom for “talking back” to the Anglo teacher when all I was trying to do was tell her how to pronounce my name. “If you want to be American, speak ‘American.’ If you don’t like it, go back to Mexico where you belong.””(Page 34) This quote alone shows how ill-informed the teachers were because she was American, born in Texas, and always lived in America. They judged her based on her genetic make-up and false assumptions.
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To create a complete, clean, and well thought out piece of writing, the author must know their genre, audience, and purpose. Genre is all about reader expectations, and if a story does not meet them, it’s un-finished. Knowing and understanding your audience tells you the appropriate tone and voice for your writing and by knowing your purpose, your readers will easily understand what you are trying to communicate with them. Genre, audience, and purpose all go hand in hand. By knowing your purpose, you need to understand your audience and genre to know how to portray your message and help your readers understand what you are trying to convey. Throughout these three readings, I feel as though each other has a firm grasp on their genre, audience and purpose and they all have a complete, clean, and well thought out piece of writing.
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Bibliography:
Collins, Billy. “Billy Collins Commencement Address.” Poet Laureate Billy Collins Gives Brilliand and Witty Commencement Address at Colorado College, 2008, 2013, http://www.graduationwisdom.com/speeches/0135-Billy-Collins-Gives-Brilliant-Witty-Commencement-Speech-Address-At-Colorado-College-2008.htm.
King, Martin Luther. “Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963) [Abridged].” Birmingham Jail, 16 Apr. 1963, Birmingham, Alabama.
Anzaldua, Gloria. How to Tame a Wild Tongue. 1987, http://www.everettsd.org/cms/lib07/WA01920133/Centricity/Domain/965/Anzaldua-Wild-Tongue.pdf.