English Homework Help

Charles Bazerman is Professor and Chair of the Department of Education at the University of California, Santa

Barbara.   He wrote a textbook, The Informed Writer.  

This discussion thread draws from chapter 1 of the book. Please click here to access chapter 1.

On page 3, Bazerman mentions the relationships between writing and speaking and between writing and reading.  “Reading and writing go hand in hand,” he notes.  

On page 4, Bazerman discusses the distinctions between writing and speaking.  He also describes how tone and audience are influenced differently in both writing and speaking.

On page 5, he mentions the art of “listening,” both for a speaker and for a writer.

On page 5, he describes a bicycle accident.  If you have a bicycle accident as he describes on this page, you may later write three email messages—one to your mother, one to your friend, and one to the insurance company. He describes these three audiences and how the letters to each will be different because the audiences are distinct and, therefore, the purposes are different.

Consider any piece of writing you have completed in the past six months—for school, for work, for a situation in your community, or some other context.  Who was the audience, and how did the audience affect how you approached this piece of writing?

Please write one paragraph of 5-6 sentences or so in your response.  Please draw upon analysis from chapter 1 from Bazerman. You may also draw upon chapter 6 of Writing for Success.  Refer specifically to the advice in one or both of these sources as you construct your paragraph.