Developing a Sense of Audience...

Many, Joyce E, Henderson, Susan. “Developing a Sense of Audience: An Examination of One School’s Instructional Contexts.” Reading Horizons. Kalamazoo: Mar/Apr. 2005. Vol. 45, Iss. 4; 321-349.

This report was a naturalistic study done to examine the ways in which audience was considered in student and teachers’ approaches to literacy. One of the contexts observed was literature circles, and the researchers found that this approach to teaching “involved students in preparing for and communicating to an audience.” Audience is important in the fields of writing and speaking, and peer dialogue supports students’ sense of audience. The authors here looked at different types of communication that took place between the students and teachers and how these interactions affected the students’ consideration of audience. The immediate audience of their peers elicited a different type of communication than they experienced with their instructors. Through the use of literature circles, the children learned to prepare information for a variety of audiences.

I would have found this article much more useful if the researchers had not focused on younger students. Much of their research would be difficult to adapt to high schoolers, who should already have a sense of audience. The report was well put together, and had many references and quotations to back up the findings, but I just don’t feel that I’ll use much, if any, of it.