Josh DeBrabander

Ciena Hadley
Stacy Rosner

The Conflict of Authentic and Imaginary: Audience and Purpose in Writing Instruction
Setting the Stage
Teachers are all aware of the importance of teaching students about genre in the
classroom. The teaching of different genres also requires teachers to address the issue of
audience as different genres require students to address different audiences. While a research
paper may require an audience of academic scholars, a personal narrative is written to an
audience of the self and peers. As teachers, we ask our students to write in many different genres,
and when we do this, we teach them the constraints of the different genres and aspects unique to
this writing. These differences are, in part, determined by the audience and purpose of the genre.

Teachers understand that there are differences in audience and genre, but do students?
What happens when a piece of writing is meant for more than one audience and purpose? We
have written this paper for you, our fellow teachers, so that you can understand the issue of
audience in the student mind. However, while we are writing this paper for you, we are also
writing this paper for readers at The English Journal, the ones who decide whether or not to
publish our submission. Our research, which was originally written for our teaching peers, had to
be written to an audience of scholars in our field as well. This merging of audiences and
purposes can often times confuse the writer and make it difficult to find a voice. As you read this
essay, keep in mind the different audiences it was written for (you, the teachers and the scholars
of The English Journal), and the different purposes we had in writing it (to assist in your learning
and to write a publishable piece).
Teaching audience and genre is one of the first things commonly taught to students when
they are learning to write. Each contributor to this paper has worked in a college classroom as a

pre-service teacher. In the final year of English education studies, students are given field
placements to help prepare them for their future as educators. For one semester each of the three
writers of this paper (DeBrabander, Hadley, and Rosner) worked as pre-service teachers in a precollege writing course. This class serves as an entry-level course at the university level for
students who need more writing assistance before taking the mandatory writing class all students
must take. These classes consist mainly of international students and English language learners;
however, there are also some domestic students enrolled who simply need to build their writing
skills before continuing in the program. These classroom environments, in addition to a range of
research, have informed this paper and given insight into the importance of audience and purpose
in assignments and the issues that are commonly encountered while dealing with this subject.
Teaching Genre in the Classroom
In many of the writing classes that were observed, the professors gave the students a base
of knowledge for each writing assignment in the form of a mnemonic device, colloquially
referred to as MAPS: Mode, Audience, Purpose and Situation. Students are told the mode that
they are being asked to write in, such as a letter or a narrative. This allows students to get a sense
of the way in which they need to format their writing. The audience of the assignment is also
outlined for the student so they can write to a specific person, such as a peer or a scholar. The
purpose of the assignment tells students the reason for their writing, as in to compile and
explain research or to analyze a characters actions and their effects on a novel. Finally,
students are given the situation they are writing in so they may know if they are supposed to be
persuading the dean of the university to make changes or writing an article to display their
research. Together, the MAPS informs students of the genre in which they are writing.

Often times, teachers are unaware that they are teaching students to analyze genre.
However, with every writing prompt we give, this is exactly what we are doing. In order to make
students aware of the different standards of different genres, teachers expose students to many
types of writing. Many scholars who have researched the concept of genre believe that the
purposes of different genres seem to be inclusive, to give nonmembers access to the
community's knowledge, genre analysis strongly suggests that the specialist and nonspecialist
users have different beliefs, interests, and purposes as well as levels of knowledge (Devitt 543).
As teachers, we ask our students to understand the elements of different genres and to write
within them without being explicit in our goal. Whenever students are writing, they are learning
about a genre. It is often argued that writing, no matter what the form, is based in genre. In
Bawarshis text Genre and the Invention of the Writer he discusses how writing is to position
oneself within genres-to assume and enact certain situated commitments, identities, relations and
practices (Bawarshi 14). Thus, teaching writing is, in essence, teaching genre. We are forced, as
teachers, to think of what genre we are actually asking students to compose.
The pre-college writing courses at this university focus on the writing of multiple genres.
One class began their semester by writing personal narratives about their journey to college and
the culture shock they went through. This task was illustrated to students as a narrative about
themselves to an audience of their peers and professors to explain the challenges they
encountered during their transition to a university. The purpose given by the professor was to
express personal emotions so peers would understand their stories. In this genre, students were
asked to use their own voice. In a personal narrative it is expected the writer is using their own
language and dialogue so it is clear who the author of the piece is. Many times when students are

asked to write personal narratives, this is emphasized either in the pre-writing stage or during
revision.
The second writing the class engaged in shifted the table entirely; students needed to
conduct their own research and compile it into a paper. The audience for this assignment was
significantly more formal; students were asked to write to an audience of fellow researchers or
colleagues looking for information about their expert subject. Students were writing this paper
for the purpose of informing and explaining information, quite a different objective than
narrating emotions for a peer. This shift in audience and purpose required students to do more
than simply display their findings; they needed to change the tone of their paper to a more formal
one and change their voice to mimic a professional rather than a student. When teaching a
different genre (audience and purpose), teachers must also teach the different features unique to
that writing.
Interestingly though, students often struggled with writing to a different audience. They
had problems using a more formal voice for a narrative and could not find an expert voice for
their research. This was most evident in a rather unique assignment where students were given
the opportunity to work within an entirely different genre. To help elucidate audience and
purpose for our class, students had to create an online urban dictionary using phrases the students
had written about in previous papers. This was a different type of writing assignment, one where
students worked in groups and designed their entries with the aid of an app available on both
their phones and their computers. Students could incorporate music, images, and other graphic
and visual aides to help define their phrase and construct meaning. Most importantly, the
students had to think carefully about their purpose as it related to the variety of potential
audiences.

To achieve this goal, students had to consider the following audiences (as defined in the
prompt): those unfamiliar with the phrase, usage, and cultural impact of the phrase (cultural
outsiders); those who were familiar with the phrase and would understand the relationship
between visuals and meanings (cultural insiders); and finally, the instructor as well. Each of these
audiences would be incorporated in the final grading of the project. The instructor would
determine the bulk of the grade, but also, part of the grade would be determined by the number
of likes they received online by their peers and friends the cultural insiders.
In designing this assignment, the instructor had wanted to make students think very
carefully about how audiences can influence meaning (purpose) and how, as writers, we need to
think carefully about the potential audiences who will read our work. In fact, this prompt seemed
even more effective because it touched on the multitude of audiences that can exist within any
one particular genre. Unfortunately, things did not go as planned.
We discovered students were making deals with each other to artificially boost the
number of likes they would receive in order to obtain the highest grade possible. Ultimately, the
students ignored the purpose of reaching multiple audiences and focused more on their final
grade. This was a trend we noticed at various other points throughout the course, and it
manifested itself in various ways, the most common of which was the form of questions and
feedback. For each assignment, regardless of the audience or purpose set up in the prompt,
students would frequently ask, Will this get me a good grade? During conferences, students
would also ask questions such as, If I make this change, will it improve my grade? For the
students, the purpose of their writing was always focused on the very real purpose of obtaining a
high grade and succeeding in the classroom.

This example from our classrooms, while unfortunate, illuminates the conflict of the
purposes laid out in our prompts and the purposes our students pursue. Why, we then ask, do
students struggle with audience and purpose if these characteristics are given to them before
writing? The answer seems to lie in the difference between the teachers idealized audience and
the audience the student has perceived
Imaginary and Real Audiences and Purposes
According to the Common Core State Standards, a student who meets the standards
canadapt their communication in relation to audience, task, purpose, and discipline. They set
and adjust purpose for reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language use as warranted by the
task (7). Essentially, the skills a student learns in writing instruction must be translatable to
different social contexts and writing tasks. This is nothing new. Writing instructors have always
wanted to help their students become strong writers, and strong writers learn how to write and
construct meaning in a variety of genres. This can be a difficult task. Each genre is different,
carrying different audiences, purposes, and social contexts the writer must both learn and
navigate.
As noted, teachers attempt to aide this transfer by incorporating a variety of genres in
their instruction, giving students the opportunities to write for different audiences and purposes.
It stands to reason that while these audiences and purposes may differ, the writing skills used to
fulfill these purposes will translate. However, what this approach fails to recognize is the
complex social contexts that exist within the classroom itself. Students compose not only for the
specific audience and purposes instructed in any particular prompt but also for their own
audience and purposes.

For example, in an argumentative prompt (a mainstay of the Common Core), students are
instructed to convince an imaginary audience to take a side using evidence and warrants to
support claims. Sometimes the teacher may even go as far as providing a more direct audience
for the student such as attempting to convince a local government official of the need for a
particular program in the community. Even in such a case, the audience must be imagined
unless the student somehow knows this official on a personal level. This imagined audience is
important, for the writers repertoire of composing strategies interacts with his mental
representations of the rhetorical purposes of performing the writing task and his mental
representations of audience expectations to shape the process of composing (Wong 31).
As one can imagine, it can be difficult to compose for an audience one has never met
before. It is simpler to use a real audience, someone known and present. In the case of student
writing, this inevitably defaults to the teacher or instructor due to the unique role they occupy in
the class. Teachers influence student writing through both the construction of the prompt and the
evaluation of writing. This last point is key. The grades and scores a student receives throughout
school are an explicit motivator for student behavior and writing, and since audience is
inextricably linked to purpose, the teachers role as a reader/evaluator of student writing creates
an entirely new and separate purpose to receive a good grade and succeed in the classroom.
In College Writing and Beyond, Anne Beaufort writes writing papers is perceived by
students as an activity to earn a grade rather than to communicate to an audience of readers in a
given discourse community and papers are commodified into grades, grades into grade reports,
grade reports into transcripts, etc. (10). Each new genre a teacher includes can result in students
defaulting to a familiar audience and purpose if the audiences and purposes the teacher puts forth

are not authentic. Beaufort goes on to write, This condition is a serious detriment to motivating
writers and to teaching writers to be sensitive to authentic social contexts for writing (10).
Furthermore, the issue of audience and purpose becomes much more complicated when
one considers the other reader-writer relationships that could potentially exist in a students
writing. Students will also read their own work as well as the work of their peers during revision.
Each of these new audiences brings forth new purposes. A model of these relationships is shown
in Figure 1.
Fig. 1.

As teachers, it is vital that we recognize and address this complicated relationship and
conflict in our teaching of writing. In order for our students to become successful writers and
citizens of the world, they must be able to write for specific audiences and purposes. Ede and
Lunsford write, One of the factors that makes writing so difficult, as we know, is that we have
no recipes: each rhetorical situation is unique (164). Each genre and each piece of writing is
unique in its audience and purpose. One must think about audience and purpose whether they are
writing a newspaper article, a medical report, a letter of recommendation, a job application, or
even a research paper for publication such as this. Each discourse community is complex and
involves specific genres, purposes, and audiences that must be considered (Hansen).
However, classroom writing can take on a uniform audience and purpose. If students
never experience purposeful, authentic writing which requires authentic audiences and purposes,

writing becomes nothing more than an artificial exercise with no impact on a students
development as a writer (Golden). If students only write within one specific discourse
community (in this case, the classroom), students lose access to vital rhetorical practices. This
becomes even more detrimental when there is a conflict between the imaginary audiences and
purposes set up in the prompt and the authentic audiences and purposes the student pursues.
Students actually do not receive any practice in writing for imaginary audiences; they focus
solely on the teacher due to the role we take in our classes.
The question then becomes how can we teach writing in such a way to make these
rhetorical practices clear? How can we create authentic audiences and purposes for our students
to explore in order to become writers?
The Social Perspective of Writing
As educators, we want to examine the ways in which teachers can make writing more
appealing and authentic for students. According to Barry M. Kroll who wrote Writing for
Readers: Three Perspectives on Audience, the three perspectives of writing include the
rhetorical perspective in which writers analyze their audience and attempt to persuade them of
something, the informational perspective in which writers provide information to their audience,
and the social perspective which involves social interaction among those doing the writing and
perhaps even between the writer and their audience. Kroll argues that students have the least
amount of experience with the social perspective of writing: writing is typically a solitary
enterprise and writing tasks can often be perceived as mere exercises, thus easily elude[ing]
our students, some of whom view writing as a mechanical task with no more social implications
than completing a set of arithmetic problems (180). As writers and teachers of writing, we know
the exciting opportunities writing can offer our students.

10

One of the opportunities writing can offer is the chance for students to work together, to
write collaboratively (Knoll). In doing so, the writers working together have a form of audience
working with them. The writers must learn to express themselves clearly so the other
writer/audience member understands what they are writing about. They become conscious of
their audience and move outside the egocentric form of writing (Kroll). Working with a partner
or partners on writing not only makes writers more aware of their audience but also holds the
writers accountable for their writing. The writing becomes more bearable if writers know
someone else is experiencing the same anxieties, frustrations, thoughts, and feelings they are,
and the writers working together can keep each other on track, motivate each other, and gain
different perspectives on their writing and on the topic they are writing about. As writers
ourselves, we know this from experience (specifically in the construction of this paper), and
these are the type of experiences we advocate our students engage in as well.
Similar to what Kroll says about having students write collaboratively, Peter Elbow states
that by including the social dimension of writing in the classroom (having students write to each
other, doing peer review, having public discussions and debates on their writings), we will
obviously help the social, public, and communicative dimension of writing [to] help students
experience writing not just as jumping through hoops for a grade but rather as taking part in the
life of a community of discourse (64). Most instructors of writing would also advocate for such
a goal. As teachers, we want to create an environment where writing is not something only done
individually but also collaboratively a space where students have authentic purposes and
audiences they can engage with and where student writing is being talked about and discussed.
We must make room for talking about our writing and not just completing writing itself.

11

Another way for writing and audience to becoming more engaging for students is to have
them write about issues or topics that are relevant to them. This gives students the chance to be
experts in their writing and think about how best to express their thoughts, feelings, and
opinions. In Amy Johns article Genre Awareness for the novice academic student: An ongoing
quest and Valerie Kinlochs Harlem on Our Minds, students were asked to interact with people
within their communities or their communities themselves. The students in Johns article met
with immigrant students at a local school and interviewed them about assimilation and
adaptation. In Kinlochs book, students went out in their communities and later presented what it
was like to live in that community. In both scenarios, students became experts of a topic,
motivating writing that allowed them to present their findings. Johns writes, The students were
highly motivated and very interested in producing a text that was satisfactory to their instructors
(248). Students felt confident in what they had done and wanted to demonstrate what they had
learned to their audience. In letting students interact with who or what they are writing about,
they will become conscious of their audience and what they want their audience to know about
their experience.
The Writer Themselves is an Audience
There is another form of audience integral to the writing process the writer
themselves. Normally, the writer is producing for the teacher, and the writer rarely gets the
opportunity to write personally. Since the writer is also the first audience, it is vital students to
learn how to write for themselves, and this style of writing will also help our students become
stronger writers overall: using lots of private exploratory writing, freewriting, and journal
writing.we will obviously help students learn to write better reflexively for themselves without
the need for others to interact with (Elbow 64-65). Some students may not have practiced

12

writing this way before or may not be confident in writing for themselves. That is where we as
teachers can step in. Elbow says that teachers should be a special kind of audience for them
[students], to be a reader who nurtures by trusting and believing in the writer (65). By doing
this, teachers instill the confidence a student needs to be able to write for themselves. We give
them a kind of permission to forget about other readers (65). This instilled confidence can
also be beneficial to us as teachers; students will want to write for us if they know we believe in
them (65). We want students to be confident in their writing and we want them to know that we
believe they are capable. We as teachers need to be a nurturing audience and reader for our
students as they learn to write for themselves and become their own audience.
Final Thoughts
We hope that by reading this article, you have learned a little more about how to teach
students about the audiences they are writing for. Often times, the audience depends on the genre
we ask students to write in. Different genres cater to different audiences. We as teachers need to
be explicit as to which genre and audience we want our students to be writing in and for. We also
need to make clear the purpose of writing. Students typically write to get a good grade, but we
want to make the writing something that teaches them about audience, genre, and purpose.
Teachers can use the social perspective and let students write collaboratively, where they can
learn about audience while working with a form of audience. However, we cannot forget about
the writer themselves as they are a form of audience. Teachers have the opportunity to
encourage, motivate, and inspire students to write for themselves and for other audiences. It is
important to keep all these things in mind while teaching students writing. Audience plays a large
role in any writing and we want to help students learn this in a way that is relevant to them and
the writing we ask them to do.

13

Works Cited
Bawarshi, Anis S., Genre and the Invention of the Writer: Reconsidering the Place of Invention
in Composition (2003). All USU Press Publications. Book 141.
Beaufort, Anne. College Writing and Beyond: A New Framework for University Writing
Instruction. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2007. Print.
Devitt, Amy J, Anis Bawarshi, and Mary Jo Reiff. "Materiality and Genre in the Study of
Discourse Communities." College English 65.5 (2003): 541-58. Print.
Ede, Lisa, and Andrea Lunsford. Audience Addressed/ Audience Invoked: The Role of
Audience in Composition Theory and Pedagogy. College Composition and
Communication. 35.2 (1984): 155-171. Web. 23 Apr. 2015.
Elbow, Peter. Closing My Eyes as I Speak: An Argument for Ignoring Audience. College
English. 49.1 (1987): 50-69. Print.
Golden, Joanne. The Writers Side: Writing for a Purpose and an Audience. Language Arts.
57.7 (1980): 756-762. Web. 24 Apr. 2015.
Hansen, Jette G. Interactional Conflicts Among Audience, Purpose, and Content Knowledge in
the Acquisition of Academic Literacy in an EAP Course. Written Communication. 17.1
(2000): 27-52. Web. 23 Apr. 2015.
Johns, Amy M. Genre Awareness for the Novice Academic Student: An Ongoing Quest.
Language Teaching. 41.2 (2008): 237-252. Print.
Kinloch, Valerie. Harlem on Our Minds: Place, Race, and the Literacies of the Urban Youth.
New York: Teachers College Press, 2010. Print.
Kroll, Barry M. Writing for Readers: Three Perspectives on Audience. College Composition
and Communication. 35.2 (1984): 172-185. Print.

14

Wong, Albert. Writers Mental Representations of the Intended Audience and of the Rhetorical
Purpose for Writing and the Strategies That They Employed When They Composed.
Science Direct. 33 (2005): 29-47. Web. 23 Apr. 2015