PB3A: Transformations

As soon as we began talking about WP3, I related it immediately to one of the programs I ran in high school. As a Volunteer with a within 4-H called Youth Experience in Science (YES) my entire position was to take weekly ideas proposed by the 4-H committee and transform it from a paper with directions meant for volunteers to read, to both a presentation to teachers for their approval as well as a lesson plan to implement to 1^st-3^rd graders. Similarly, it seems like this assignment is nearly the same thing in terms of creating something for both a younger and older audience but having still to present the same ideas.

The article I chose to work with was “Disciplines and Discourses: Social Interactions in the Construction of Knowledge” by Ken Hyland. The article discusses the aspect of how the interaction between the writer and reader can change reader’s perception of the topic and how any simple change can affect the entire piece. For an older audience genre, I am thinking about creating some sort of consent form that would contain the implications and acknowledgements of how writers can influence readers and the responsibility of sharing knowledge with readers. I plan on tailoring the form so it seems like required paperwork to submit before publishing an opinion article in a magazine or newspaper. From the academic article, I plan on transforming the information presented in order to create a new piece with conventions of consent forms. A few conventions that first come to mind is of course a signature line at the bottom along with a line to write the date as well as possibly a witness signature line. As for the actual content of the consent form I have not though of any specifics, however I know it should contain information about the risks of writing towards the beginning and a statement of acknowledgement stating that they have read and understood everything to the best of their ability and understand their requirements and obligations as writers.

For a younger audience, I am thinking of transforming “Disciplines and Discourses: Social Interactions in the Construction of Knowledge” into the genre of a motivational/educational poster that are often hung in classrooms from pre-school till usually the end of high-school. Since this is an academic subject, a poster in the classroom will still contain the academic writing aspect as well as still seeming logical. Because many of the aspects discussed in the article wouldn’t make sense in younger school age children, I plan on making it targeted toward particularly high-school age students. Transforming a 20-page article to a poster, I will have to keep the content of it somewhat short and only focus on the main aspects of the article, which understandably may cause the subject to lose some meaning and context. Also, as a poster meant for younger audiences, the diction of the poster is going to be drastically different from the original article. Instead of using large academic English, I plan on using smaller simpler words in order to make the targeted audience have an easier time relating to it. Lastly, seeing as posters are meant to engage the audience, I would plan on inserting some type of visual stimuli to grab the reader’s attention, most likely something colorful yet not too distracting to take away from the primary message.