ENG/210 v1

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Audience Observations Activity

Complete this activity using the smartphone image you selected from the Interactive Smartphone
Observations activity.

Consider the following questions as you analyze your selected image:

 What inferences can you make about the owner based on the home screen or apps on the
smartphone? 
 Can you make any assumptions by observing the type of smartphone and its condition? 
 What might the smartphone reveal about the owner, such as their health, values, age, or wealth?
What are you first reactions?

Complete the questions below using the corresponding instructions.

1. Use the table below to list 3 to 5 observations about your selected smartphone. For each
observation, provide 1 inference about the smartphone’s owner (audience).

Provide a smartphone observation. Provide an inference about the

smartphone’s owner (audience).
Example Lots of unread messages Maybe this person is very busy or
very irresponsible?
Observation 1 Cover of the phone has a cartoon This probably belongs to a kid who
image on it. loves cartoons.
Observation 2 Text message from parent The text message from the phone
indicates that the owner of the phone
is a kid who is probably not too old,
perhaps around the ages of 8 to 12
years old and is prone to forgetting
his/her backpack in school.
Observation 3 The Fandora and the Tok Tok app They suggest that this kid loves
watching and playing fun stuffs on
his/her phone.
Observation 4 Wallpaper of a cat This probably suggests that the owner
might be cat lover.
Observation 5

1. Assume you were able to determine the smartphone owner’s email address. Consider what you
observed about the smartphone and what you believe are characteristics of its potential owner.
Consider how what you learned about the owner might affect your word choices or sentence
structure when writing to that person. Based on those considerations, draft a message to the
owner offering to return the smartphone.
Hi dear Parent, I chanced upon a certain mobile phone on my way to town today. Upon closer
inspection of the phone, I saw the cover of the phone was yellow and it had some cartoon figure
on it, and also had a message on it reminding the owner not to forget his/her backpack plus some
other fun apps and a certain parent folder. With these information, I have come to the
conclusion that the owner of the phone might be your child who might be less than 10 years or

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 Audience Observations Activity
ENG/210 v1
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within his/her early teens. I would like to return the phone so you can pass by my house during
the weekends to claim ownership of it. I am located at House number 32, Avant street near the
gas station.

2. In a few sentences, identify which of your observations impacted the note you wrote to the
smartphone's owner. Provide how your knowledge of your audience affected your choices as an
author.
I chose the first smartphone, and my observations that impacted the note I wrote is that the
phone had a message which might probably have been sent by a parent, informing the owner
about when he/she will be picked up and also not to forget his/her backpack. This plus a folder
on the phone name “parent folder plus some other things like the cartoonic cover and some fun
apps suggested that the owner is a kid who might not even be in his/her teens or might probably
be in his/her early teens. With this information, I decided to direct my note to the parents of the
child instead since the owner might not be old enough to receive my note.

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