The Informative Genre:

For our latest assignment, the Informative Genre, I would like to research and write about the conditions in which children with autism may thrive.  It will focus mainly on the conditions that are related to school activities and curriculum and the surrounding environment.

The two main audience that I would like to target are concerned parents and school officials of the local district.  The reasons for choosing these two audiences are as following: concerned parents are those parents who are either directly or indirectly affected by ASD (autistic spectrum disorder) and they would surely want to pay attention and participate in any discussions or debate resulting from this research topic (second stage of publicity); school officials will be the targeted audience because they will be the individuals who will make a difference in any changes depending on the pressure put forward by the concerned parents (third stage of publicity).  More thorough analysis will be done on the parents since they are the group which I would try to persuade in the research writing.  More research on demographics, interests, values, assumptions, and knowledge base will be ascertained in order to decide on the tone of the writing.  Perhaps the Providence Journal Bulletin or a local medical news magazine can be a good publication for gaining access to this target audience?

In order to appeal to this audience, I need to do a scientific based research, with references to studies,  first in order to make the writing credible.  Once the credibility is established, then my plan is to appeal to their sensitivity and empathy for these children.  The research will be offer answers to questions like following: what is ASD; who can if affect; what is the rate of occurence in the US; what do these children need in order to succeed to the best of their ability; what can the audience do to help?

For research, I plan to read some peer reviewed journal articles.  For fieldwork, I would like to interview some parents of children with ASD, and visit some support groups for parents with ASD either by internet media or a center.

Does anyone have any suggestion for me?

Introduction

Hello Everyone: My name is Channy and this is my first experience with creating a blog so it is new and exciting for me!  I am currently taking a public writing class at URI.  I hope to be able to work with some of you to improve my writing ability and I would like to offer the same consideration.  Good luck to all!