Unit Three: Recasting for a Public Audience
KEY ASSIGNMENT
Recast your researched argument for a different audience and purpose.
DISCUSSION
Now that you have researched your topic and written a formal, academic argument essay,
this assignment provides an opportunity to present your researched argument in a new or
different way: to recast it, perhaps as a visual argument, an editorial, or some other public
form. We call this work a “recast” because it retains the imprint or key elements of your
original essay while changing its shape and focus. The goals of this project are to share your
work with more people than your instructor and to be aware of the various decisions that
you need to make when working with different audiences and different media. You or your
instructor will choose a group as the target audience of your text. The audience might be
more generally defined (the class, other college students, older adults, etc.) or more
narrowly defined determined by the message you wish to convey.
ASSIGNMENT OPTIONS
 Article for publication in a public forum: Recast your argument into an editorial or
article for publication in a print-based or Web-based forum. This project calls on
you to capture your argument in a briefer form directed to a specific audience. You
will need to consider the submission requirements of the publication, its readership,
and focus. Your submission should be relevant, current, and compelling to your
publication’s readers.

Advocacy Text: This option has two parts: 1) a public service poster, advocacy ad,
Web site, or pamphlet, and 2) a brief essay that describes and explains the choices
you made in designing your project. Create an advocacy ad, poster, Web site, or
pamphlet that recasts the issue argued in your research essay as a public problem
and calls for action and support. This project calls on you to capture your argument
in a highly condensed form, while making it visually clear and memorable. You will
need to consider all the features of visual arguments—type sizes and fonts, layout,
color, and images and graphics—to grab the attention of your audience, construct a
compelling sketch of the problem, and inform your audience what course of action
you want them to take. Your essay should clarify, contextualize, and justify the
composition of your project, in effect, making an argument for its composition and
overall effect and purpose.

Proposal Speech with Visual Aids: Recast your researched argument essay as a
prepared speech of approximately five to eight minutes supported with visual aids.
An audience might be your classmates, a club or organization to which you belong, a
community organization, and so forth (note: if delivered to an audience beyond your
class, please video record your delivery). Your speech should represent the issue
argued in your research essay as a problem, propose a solution, justify the solution
with reasons and evidence, and defend it against objections or alternative solutions.
As you deliver your speech, use appropriate visual aids to give presence to the
problem, highlight points, provide memorable data or evidence, or otherwise
enhance appeals to logos, ethos, and pathos. Accompany your speech with a written
rationale in which you discuss your context, purpose, audience, and choices you
made in your delivery (your instructor will supply further instructions).

Other options as determined by your instructor
ASSIGNMENT GOALS
 To understand that researched writing can be reworked for different audiences
 To explore different genres as possibilities for your writing
 To consider how the needs of a public audience affect choices in communicating
your message
 To demonstrate how to represent yourself through your work to a public audience
 To demonstrate how to present your purpose and argument to best suit your
audience’s needs and expectations
FORMAT
Determined by your instructor
EXAMPLE TEXTS FOR DISCUSSION
[Refer to some online texts that can be analyzed in class on the quick]
PURPOSE WITHIN 1001 CURRICULUM
This assignment asks that you reconsider the purpose of your project, its goals and focus,
and the needs and expectations of your audience. Because this assignment is meant for an
audience different than the one you directed your research essay toward, it gives you an
opportunity to refocus your research with a new purpose, audience, and context in mind. It
prepares you to do the kinds of thinking and writing required to communicate successfully
a message to various discourse communities, whether the community is formal or informal,
familiar or unfamiliar, academic or nonacademic. Finally, it introduces you to genre, one of
the areas emphasized in Intermediate Composition, the final course in the English
Composition sequence.
**All materials excerpted from the English 1001 course guide, University of Cincinnati,
English I: Introductory English