MayaWest Writing Project

Lesson Plan Handout

Demonstration Lesson Title: Recognizing Who is Reading: The Importance of Defining
Your Audience

Presenter: A.J. Rivera

Audience: Educators and teaching assistants (for presentation); 11
th
graders or INGL 3103/3104
students (for activity in practice)

Objectives:
By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
More easily understand the concept of informal and formal audiences and the
conventions that go along with both.
Put this knowledge into practice in their writing, recognizing when each is appropriate.
Have a deeper understanding of why we include the information we include in our
writing, based off our presumptions of our audiences knowledge.

State (DE-PR) Standards:
L/S.11.3 Uses appropriate language structure to analyze and state opinions in discussions
and presentations, to problem solve, and to explain a process integrating comparison and
contrast statements.
L/S.11.5 Analyzes the main idea or topic and important details from learned concepts or
readings from a variety of persuasive texts; summarizes, explains, clarifies, and discusses
effectiveness of text, performance, speech, or literature.
W.11.2 Determines the purpose of writing; analyzes and constructs organizational
patterns to connect ideas; writes narrative, expository, and persuasive essays.
W.11.5 Applies editing marks, self-correcting methods, and reference sources to revise
and edit; analyzes, organizes, and verifies information to write and revise; completes a
final draft using the writing process.

UPRM English Course Objectives (INGL 3103/3104):
State an authors purpose and intended audience
Provide relevant supporting details and evidence/justification for relevant statements in
their essays
Continuing application of the various stages of the writing process to written work,
including drafting, peer editing, and publishing.

Materials:
Computer with projector
Whiteboard
Whiteboard markers/eraser
Some form of media (music video, television show, or print advertisement) which you
believe will elicit a response from your students
MayaWest Writing Project



Procedure:
Depending on the amount of class time in a given class meeting (ex. 50 mins, 75 mins),
play the selected media for your students.
o For a 50 minute class, a 3 minute music video would work.
o For a longer class, a longer video or TV episode could be used.
While they are watching it, instruct them to take notes in response to a given question or
prompt. Keep other information to a minimum in order to avoid impacting the response
they give.
After the video has concluded, instruct students to write a response to the prompt as if
they are writing to a friend who has not seen the video before (an informal audience with
no knowledge of the topic). This should take 5-7 minutes.
After the friend/family response, instruct them to write the same response as if they were
writing to someone they wanted to impress (a formal audience with no knowledge of the
topic). This will take another 5-7 minutes.
o Depending on the length of the clip, it could be replayed while they write each
response.
Once both responses are completed, pair students up and have them discuss the
information they included and the way they presented it in each response. This will take
7-10 minutes.
After the discussion in pairs, bring the class back together for large group discussion. Use
the whiteboard to compile a list of the conventions of formal/informal writing and clarify
any questions and concerns they may have.
o Keep instructor input limited, but if they miss any key concepts (i.e. including a
marginal amount of summary so the audience will be able to understand what
they are writing about), then inform them of these points.

Assessment:
The assessment for the activity will be the written responses of the students. Collect them
after the activity is concluded and review them to ensure the students input in the large
group discussion matched what they wrote.
Assessment also comes in the form of every other work of writing they will complete in
the semester/school year. This activity will provide a frame of reference for formality in
writing which can be referred to at later points in the semester.