My audience for this project are parents of teenagers.

They have the

biggest impact when it comes to how teenagers spend their free time.
Parents typically want the best for their children, and with this information,
they can help their teenagers better their future. My argument is that the
more a teenager reads, the better they have of getting either a job right out
of high school, or getting into a college, thus getting a better job after
college. I was one of the few students from my high school who normally
enjoyed the required readings, but even I didnt care for some of the books
we read. I have fantastic grammar and writing skills compared to most of my
peers from high school. I am from a redneck community where skills that
dont have to do with hunting, fishing, or farming are not valued as much as
they should be. I want the people I grew up with to succeed, but if they cant
put to use the skills learned in school, then they will never get out of
Rockingham County. I want the attitudes about the importance of reading to
change in schools, so my sister doesnt grow up with the same bad habits as
the people I graduated with.
The sources I used came in a variety of different formats. I checked out
three books from the library, conducted my own survey, and the rest came
from the internet. My internet sources came from databases and pdf articles,
produced either by the government of a country, or doctors. Three of my
sources guided my path to my final argument. It started with a book I
checked out from the library. In Parents Who Love Reading, Kids Who Dont,
Mary Leonhardt says, Students whose main language input is oral language

will write these same loose, slightly awkward structures. They havent been
exposed to enough written language saturated with enough written
language - to acquire sophisticated written-language structures (1995).
This was something I had never thought about. A few days later, I found an
article produced by the U.S. government that supports the idea that reading
for pleasure has positive effects. The article says, Good readers generally
more financially rewarding jobs (National Endowment for the Arts 2007).
This is the key point that helped me sway my audience to take action.
Parents want the best for their children, and a financially rewarding job is
part of it. My third source was a survey that I created and then posted on
social media. It set into stone what age group should be my audiences
target. In my survey, I found that the majority of people who hate reading as
adults, began to hate reading in high school. This was eye opening for me,
and I realized where I should target my purpose.
I chose to do a classified ad for a job opening because the generation
that reads the paper daily, or weekly, is the generation that is raising my
generation. Some parents want their children to get a job during high school
to help pay the bills. Where better to look than the classified ads in the
newspaper? This is one that would catch parents eyes and have an impact.
My second genre was a mix between a text message and a poster. The text
message is on the poster, and I like to consider this an advertisement
altogether. This ad would go in magazines and DMVs. The magazines that
have this ad would be Parents, Better Homes and Garden, and other

magazines geared towards 35-55 year olds. These are magazines that
parents tend to have the most access to. The poster would go in DMVs
because thats where teenagers and parents spend quite a bit of time
together. There is never much to see while waiting for them to call the next
person in. It can get parents thinking while they have no Wi-Fi and nothing
else to do.
Throughout my two genres, I used four out of the five modes of
communication, including linguistic, visual, gestural, and spatial. In my
poster/advertisement, I used mainly visual. There is a ton of color throughout
the poster, and bright red text at the bottom. Linguistic was used for this half
as well. The text message that is shown uses language styles that catch
peoples eyes. In order to appeal to my target audience, parents, I used all
three of Aristotles appeals. In my poster, I presented an uneducated, 30
year old man still living with his parents, unemployed, and a mother who is
tired of taking care of her son when he should be taking care of her.
Emotions are presented through the text messages sent between the two. At
first glance, the video game controller in the background looks like a gun.
This captures peoples attention with the thought of a teenager holding a
gun, and this also captured the gestural mode. The order, or logos, of the
poster and classified ad are as logical as it can be. Both are read from left to
right and top to bottom. Linguistic was heavily used for my second genre,
the classified ad. The classified ad is mostly just words on a page, in
newspaper form. Spatial mode was also captured because the classified ad is

towards the top of the page, where most people look first. The ad creates a
character who means well, but doesnt take any crap from anyone. It gives a
sense of what the real world is like. This genre uses ethos and pathos
together. Someone may read the ad, and feel a certain way either while
reading it, or after.
Parents needed to see this right away because the school year is
almost over, and teenagers tend to not do much during the summer. The
summer is full of free time which can be used for reading, which can help
with next school year. The text messages on the poster and the classified ad
in the paper are both medias that parents can understand and encourage
them into immediate action.
Overall, I think that both of my genres would be successful with my
audience. Although, I feel that my poster would be more successful than the
classified ad because teens and parents would see it more often, rather than
the classified ad, which parents are the only ones who may see it.