EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

Chapter 7, page 155

Writing for the audience. Writing for the audience refers to an ability to take readers’ knowledge
and perspectives into account when writing. An effective high school writer will write an analysis of causes
of World War I differently if the audience is her history teacher than if the audience is a fifth grade history
class. Similarly, an effective writer will write a persuasive essay arguing for higher taxes to support
schools differently if readers are likely to be hostile to the idea than if readers are willing to be more
receptive. Writing for the audience is difficult because people find it very difficult to take other people’s
perspectives into account (Cutting & Chinn, 2006; Gehlbach, 2004)
More effective writers attend more to their audience than novices do, and the ability to take audiences
into consideration develops with age (Kellogg, 1994). Fourth and eighth graders do not make adjustments
to their essays when they are given information about the audience; twelfth graders do (Bracewell,
Scardamalia, & Bereiter, 1978).

Problem 7.9.

Understanding students’ thinking: Writing strategies

A fifth grader is writing about the causes of the American Revolution for a class history book

that his class is putting together. Before he begins writing the paper, he spends 5 minutes

writing the following on scratch paper.

Main causes:

2 3 soldiers stay in people’s houses

1 2 be free

3 too many taxes

3 1 taxes without representation Boston Tea Party

His final paragraph is as follows:

There were three main causes of the American

Revvolution. They didn’t like taxes without

representation, so they had the Boston Tea Party. They

wanted to be free. And they got mad when soldiers were

staying in their house.

Evaluate the strategy use that is evidenced in his prewriting and writing.

Response: The student has done some planning, as is evident in his outline. And there is a

small amount of revision, as the student crosses out one idea and replaces with another, and

also reorders the ideas slightly. But overall, the idea generation is minimal, and there is no

generation of supporting ideas. So this is, overall, unsatisfactory planning. It appears that he

undertakes no revision once he begins writing. His lack of awareness of the audience is evident

in that he doesn’t provide any surrounding context, and he leaves the reader to wonder what

his pronouns (they) refer to.