Edutopia – Andrew McNally
“Much has been written lately about the value of students writing to an authentic audience. But for all writers, a known, flesh-and-blood audience is less common than one that is imagined. Published writers never meet most of their readers. And when someone does write to a specific known audience—sending an email to a colleague, turning in a paper to a teacher—they still must venture guesses about that audience: how they will react to an exclamation point at the end of a sentence, whether a clever or straightforward introduction would be more appropriate, which example would be more persuasive. Douglas Park made a similar point in an important 1982 essay called “The Meanings of ‘Audience.’”” (more)