ENTRY #10: Round of Applause for Amanda!

 

After looking through peers blogs this week, Amanda's blog draw me in! I first would like to bless Amanda on the way she's developed her blog. When viewing Amanda's blog, the text font used is easy to read, the colors make me feel relaxed, making my mind ease, I was also able to easily navigate through different articles. One other touch to Amanda's blog that drew me into the entry that I read through is her creation of titles that are captivating to the readers to click on to read. I had clicked on Amanda's Entry #9 titled YOU HAVE TO READ THIS BLOG, after reading through the entry I really appreciated Amanda's use of lots of examples of her past experiences trying to be persuaded, and observations of what she's seen being down in the class using persuasive writing. I found myself able to really connect to her experiences as well, when Amanda had mentioned, being most influenced "by Pathos- cue the song "In The Arms of an Angel", it made me stop and think about all the times that I was watching tv and immediately had to flip the channel when I heard the song start because I also feel that I'm most influenced by being persuaded though Pathos (Emotions). In conjunction with this idea that maybe a person has an appeal that is most likely to influence them, It made me think of the identity's of our audience when we write. 

 In Tompkins, chapter 11,  she writes, "Writers' ability to tailor writing to fit their audience is arguably more important in persuasive writing than in other genres..."(p.252). The combination of Amanda's blog and Tompkins quote I would like to address the question, "Does our identity's effect the appeals we use when writing a persuasive piece?" or "How might knowing the identity of our audience tailor the appeals that we use when we're using the persuasive genre to write?". Amanda had mentioned in her blog, that during her undergraduate placement, she observed a 3rd grade teacher guiding her students to writing a persuasive letter to the principal on why extra recess time is important. When I was thinking about what these students reasons might have been I was thinking they might mention, more recess time means more exercise which keeps them healthy, or maybe more time to play with their friends makes them happy. These students have different identity's from each other but the identity they have in common is their kids and their students, their responses probably are more likely to have appeals to pathos and logos because at a young age you tend to think of your own feelings first before thinking about how it can be beneficial to someone else as well. However thinking of a response that might come from a student that might identify as having ADHD maybe a written response would be, "it would help me to get my energy out so I can focus on my work better".  Of course this is a hypothetical responses I played out as a way to try and clarify my exploration of this question that was inspired by Amanda's entry. I would be curious to hear what Amanda's thoughts would be on the impact of our persuasive writing pieces and the impact our identity could have on that.