Erica Bruckner

De Piero
May 17, 2015
WP3
For WP3, I took the information given in the scholarly article, Shower with a Friend,
and transformed it into two different genresone geared toward a younger audience and one
geared toward an older audience. For the younger audience, I turned Shower with a Friend into
a childrens book; for the older audience, I transformed it into a news article in a college
newspaper. Shower with a Friend is an an informative, scholarly article about how wasting water also wastes energy and is therefore, detrimental to the environment. The article explores the
different small changes one can make in their daily routine to conserve more water. This assignment helped me to further my understanding of genres and their conventions because I had
to think about both the differences and similarities in how different genres present the same
information.
The childrens book that I wrote was geared toward an audience of 3 to 5 years old. My
goal for the book was to use the information presented in Shower with a Friend in order to make
young children realize that they should try to conserve water because wasting water has negative
consequences. I also sought to teach them simple habits they could start that would reduce their
environmental impact and allow them to be less wasteful. In order to cater to my intended audience, I tried my best to keep the tone light-hearted, so as not to scareor borethe young children; I did this by using bright colors and resolving the conflict of the story as fast as possible.

WP3

"1

I made a move in both simplifying and leaving out certain concepts that were discussed
in Shower with a Friend. For example, I did not try to explain the concept of a drought or get
into how heating up water can waste energy. I made this move in order to make the content of the
book more simple and understandable for young children who are not advanced enough to fully
grasp complicated concepts like droughts or energy. This exemplified McClouds concept of
framing because I chose to withhold some pieces of informationand include othersin order to effectively get across a point: that wasting water has negative consequences and the ways
in which one can help to conserve it.
I also made a move in using as many bright colors and pictures as I could in the childrens book. I included vibrant colors and illustrations because I thought that, for example, if the
book was plain black and white text and did not have exciting colors, the child would get bored
and not pay attention to the story or the message. My intention was for the intense visuals to engender excitement in a young reader and help to keep them focused. For this reason, I thought
the use of bright colors and illustrations would more effectively teach them that they should try
to not waste water. This demonstrated McClouds concept of visual literacy because I used visual
aids in order to create an emotional affect in my reader in the form of excitement and concentration.
For the article in the college newspaper, I geared the piece towards the more mature
members of the UCSB and Isla Vista community. My goal was to convey ways in which one limits their water consumption in the form of a local, college news article.

WP3

"2

I made a move by trying to keep the tone of the article unbiased. I made this move in order to stay true to the conventions of a news article, which typically try to strictly state facts and
keep away from opinions (unless the article is in the opinion section) so there is no chance of a
reader being offended by the article and not continuing to read the newspaper in the future.
Newspapers also shy away from opinions when reporting the daily news so the reader can form
an opinion of their own. In order to remain unbiased, I reported two opposing opinionsboth
Salehis supporting words for Chancellor Yangs message and Woods condemnation of Yang's
stanceand did not give any reason to believe I agreed with one more than the other. My unbiased tone, I believe, followed the conventions of a college newspaper article and made the article
more convincing.
I also made a move in including both a large picture and a quote in a bigger font on the
front page of the paper. I made this move in order to make it look more like a campus newspaper.
The big quotes and pictures stayed true to the conventions of campus news sources because they
almost always have eye-catching blurbs of text and pictures; the purpose for the attention-grabbing features is to attract the attention of students walking enough that they will take the time to
pick it up and read it. I believe my inclusion of a large quote and picture exemplifies visual literacy because I made a move in trying to make the front look as attention-grabbing as possible; I
used visual literacy to determine that a certain layout or design will entice the reader to be interested in the content and want to read it.
Although I initially ran into problems with the overall formatting of the faux-newspaper
article, I think it turned out really nicely. Because I only have experience formatting essays on
my computer, I did not really know where to begin in order to make my article look like an auWP3

"3

thentic newspaper. However, with the help of a template meant to help create a newsletter, I think
I succeeded in following many of the conventions of a college newspaper. Firstly, I included other stories that relate to UCSB at the top of the document, as well as the pages they can be found
on and pictures related to the particular articles. I believe the previews to the other stories greatly
contributed to making the document seem like a newspaper article because they made it know
that the article about Chancellor Yanglike a true newspaper articlewas apart of a greater
body of writing. The subjects of the other articles also followed the conventions of a college
newspaper in the way that they focused on events and occurrences on the UCSB campustopics
that, in general, only UCSB students are concerned with. Moreover, I believe that my inclusion
of an ad looking for student-workers contributed to my document feeling like a school newspaper article because it pointed to the fact that the readers of the newspaper were mainly collegeaged students. My inclusion of the ad demonstrated that I was keeping my audience in minda
necessary factor for successfully writing under any genre.
This WP3 assignment helped me to obtain a better understanding of the moves an author
makes in their writing because it forced me to identify the subtle decisions I chose to make over
the course of writing the article and childrens book. Having me write under two different genres
and then, afterwards, take the time to reflect about why I made some of the choices I didand
what affect I thought it would have on the readerhelped me deepen my understanding of genre
and conventions because it made me think of why I made certain moves. I believe that getting
down to the whys of my writing style helped me improve my writing as a whole because it
makes me keep my main purposes of writing on my mind and allows me to stay focused more
easily. Furthermore, making a conscious effort to make moves has a positive effect on the

WP3

"4

overall quality of my writing; I believe that using moves gave my writing its own uniqueness,
made it less bland, and set it apart as its own text. The assignment also exemplified the benefits
of having ones audience in mind while writing a piece; the vast differences between the childrens book and news article demonstrated that an authors audience is a crucial factor of how
the piece should be written.

WP3

"5