Know Your Audience Analysis

Upon reading and responding to all posts made in the “Know Your Audience” discussion board, I feel as though I have a better understanding of my classmates. I was, in all honesty, surprised by the response to my question, “Have you ever written a fanfiction?” In my small circle of friends, fanfictions are commonplace. We share ideas, mourn over what we should have thought of, and watch movies & read books with the occasional intent of adding our own flair to them. When I saw that only one or two of my classmates had written them (or even heard of them), I was flabbergasted.

As far as the questions posed by my fellow students, I completely expected the “Where would you go on vacation” and “What would you do with lottery winnings”. These are great questions, as they can give you insight into what motivates/is important to a person. There were a few unique and unexpected questions, including things like “What color is your attitude” (Ms. A), which band best fits my personality (R.L.), and which conspiracy theories I’m most interested in (T.C.). All of these questions made me pause for a moment, and consider things I had never really thought about before. To me, questions like these that are outside “the box” are awesome.

Based on what I learned from this experience, I plan to include more outside the box thinking, and plan to challenge my classmates with questions during our future discussions. I will look for things that are unexpected, while staying in the realm of the required, because (for those that posed such questions during the past board) such queries cause critical and in depth thinking, not simple rote answers. I believe that increasing our critical thinking and deep consideration will help us as writers, and so I hope to see more questions of that nature in the future.

~K~