Assignment Content

The ability to identify purpose, audience, genre, and context can improve your comprehension as a reader and enhance your ability to make decisions as a writer. When you write, how do your purpose, audience, genre, and context shape your decisions about how you respond to a project or task?

Access the Genre Passages and Response Examples document and:

Carefully read the 3 passage excerpts that reflect 3 different genres of writing you may encounter in your daily life. Each passage’s title has been removed.
For each passage, make educated guesses about the:
Writer’s purpose
Passage’s audience
Genre of the writing
Passage’s context
Note specific passage examples to support your educated guesses. Focus on the purpose, the audience, the genre, and the context. Refer to the Response Guidance Examples at the end of the document to see how you might note your observations and respond.
Use the example responses provided in the document to assist you with this assignment.
Quick tip: While there are no absolute right or wrong answers for this assignment, there are informed and uninformed responses. Informed responses will include specific characteristics and examples from the original text to support your conclusions. Review the Tools for Investigating Rhetorical Situations. Since many details from the passages below have been removed, this resource will help you spot clues to make better guesses.

Choose 1 of the following response formats for this assignment and review the corresponding resource:

250- to 350-word written response
Review “Mastering the Four Bases” to guide your writing.
2- to 3-minute video response
Review “Today’s Tip: How-To Film a Video of Yourself” before beginning. There is also a transcript available.