Composing my compositions from 2 genres differs from writing a traditional essay because It forced me to change my approach to designing visual appeals. In a traditional essay, I needed to adapt to the structure of having an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. However, genre compositions are different as they are a means to express a message to a specific audience through a different medium than a traditional essay. I used a poster because I felt if I expressed my concerns in bullet points, it would be successful in bringing my message across to my audience. I want to make my opinion of American education transparent to the audience. Also, since the photographs stand out tremendously, it has a visual appeal to the audience that encourages them to be engaged. This poster helps display my subject because, through captivating pictures as well as words, it shows the shortcomings in the American education system. Another genre I used is a meme to exaggerate this ridicule of American education that can draw the attention of the educators as the problem can be serious. In doing so, to make things up to date with other countries, this might bring some kind of improvement within the framework. Instead of reading paragraphs, some individuals want to see visual pictures, which is why this is a good way to use when addressing problems with the American education system. In my meme, one rhetorical technique I used is logos by explaining how America is ranked behind countries when it comes to education. This is shown when America states that they are ranked 11 in terms of education. Another rhetorical approach that I used is a pathos that catches the audience’s emotions. By using pathos, by showing that teachers are underpaid, I appealed to the emotions of the audience. This appeals to their concerns as the audience sees that teachers are underpaid, so they will feel empathetic to the teachers in the education system. Also, in this poster, I used the sad face to talk about how the education system relies a lot on grades to represent how the students feel that the educators feel sympathy for the students should relate to. Using pathos makes the viewer of the education system feel a sense of sympathy for both students and teachers.

Using two genres to convey my main idea can better convey the different target audiences and the different effects that I want to convey. In the traditional essay, an introduction is needed to introduce the seriousness of the danger of school bullying, and then we need to use research data and evidence to support the argument in order to draw a conclusion. The traditional essay does improve writing and is informative. In order to write an article that is closer to the public eye, we need to learn how to be creative and use rhetorical strategies.

As for the choice of genre, I chose through different audiences. Firstly, I chose to use the video format of the advertisement, in which all the characters are students. I used the before and after comparison of students being bullied in order to convey the negative consequences of bullying more directly to students. The advertisement can attract more students to pay attention to the bullying around them and get some positive energy from the advertisement in order to change students’ negative thoughts. Unlike a traditional paper, a poster does not have a large text narrative, but it can be used to explain the main idea in the simplest possible way. The target audience for the poster genre is parents and educators. The responsibilities of parents and educators are also a factor in school bullying. Therefore, the poster can communicate the main idea of “take action” to my target audience and attract more parents and educators to pay attention to bullying and take action to stop it.

For the first advertisement, I used pathos rhetoric about how horrible school bullying is for the victims, and told more students to stop bullying. Encourage more students to help when they see bullying and not to be afraid of the threat of others, the law will protect us. For the second genre, I chose a logical rhetorical strategy to explain school bullying, and call on parents to pay attention to their children’s education. Furthermore, educators to pay close attention to students’ changes in school, and help students to change their deficiencies and shortcomings, pass on more positive energy to students.

My Composition in Two Genres felt different from writing a traditional essay because it seemed to focus more on the imagery we decided to use and very concise language. It felt like creating a teaser for the research paper we wrote prior. Unlike traditional essays, I found myself condensing a lot of the information I had instead of expanding on it. I also had to pay attention to hierarchy. The largest text or the largest image, would be seen first and had to grab my audience’s attention. For my subway ad, I had to choose words that had a direct impact to my target audience, and for my Twitter ad, the images were the largest on the screen so they had to be familiar to the demographic I was trying to reach on that platform. 

I knew that I wanted to reach both the parents and the children of these divorced families. In order to reach the parents, I went with a subway ad because I knew that most parents commute in order to go to work. On that commute they have the time to read as they wait for their stop, so I included a short list of information, and contact information if they wanted to learn more. To reach the children of these divorced families, I decided to use social media and went with Twitter because I believe that this platform creates posts that are easiest to spread. With one tap, these children can retweet this ad to help it reach a larger audience.

For both of these genres I used pathos by using images that appealed to the viewer’s emotions. For the subway ad, I used the silhouette image of a divorced couple each taking the hand of their child and pulling in opposite directions, while their child is in the middle ripped apart. This can cause the audience to feel sadness towards the child. Since it is a silhouette, the audience, if they are divorced or know of a divorced couple, can imagine themselves or those people instead of the silhouette, making the imagery even more effective. For the meme, I used two images that side by side are meant to be humorous. The left image evokes pity because the person in it is crying. However, when it is placed next to the image on the right where it shows a person looking very confused, it creates a more light-hearted humorous tone that is easier to share.

This assignment was interesting to say the least. It was very different from writing a traditional essay but that is what made this assignment more fun. A traditional essay comes off as tedious but this composition in two genres felt like a breath of fresh air. However I have never been on the creative front of things so it was also quite challenging to try to think outside of my usual box. For my genres I chose a political cartoon and a poster. I chose those genres because they were out of my comfort zone and I wanted to make my best attempt to express myself in a way I often do not do. My intended audience had no effect on my choice because I felt no matter the medium I could figure out a way to reach my intended audience.  I used pathos and logos as my rhetorical strategies to best convey my message to my audience, which was the United States Government. I used pathos in my political cartoon to show the confusing emotional struggle that can take place in America with the reverberations of the government’s actions and policies. I showed this in the fact that the family living in the mushroom is split on whether to trust the government or not. On the one hand the government is there to make sure things work and run smoothly in the world so they should be trusted. But on the other hand many of their decisions have resulted in sometimes tragedy. I used logos when I made my poster. I did this by showing that many of the hot topics in current events such as climate change, blm, women’s rights are only strengthened by research and are idea built on the backs of academic research while the government’s war with Afghanistan, the opioid crisis, and the war on drugs were built on the backs of political games. 

I have to be honest, initially I was very excited for the “creative” essay and the freedom that would bring to my writing. However, composing essay number 3 turned out to be quite challenging for me. Crafting the outline of what I wanted to do and how to make it fit with my research question from essay 2 went smoothly, it was the visual genre proved most difficult to navigate. Once I had decided to represent two different political perspectives surrounding one subset of my research I was able to compose my selection for the second genre, a letter to the editor, rather quickly. For that I wanted to represent a conservative standpoint using pathos and what might be viewed as more traditional ethical views. This was a contrast to the logic I wanted to underscore the emotions roused by the more liberal satirical cartoon of the first genre. My troubles came when it was time to seek out a cartoon to modify that would align with my objective—the overpopulation of prisons and serious health risks for inmates and staff due to Covid-19. After days of sifting through options while writing and rewriting wry and ironic quips, I settled on something simple and relatively on the nose. It made the point I sought and spoke to a more liberal, yet serious,  politically progressive demographic. After receiving helpful feedback on my first draft it became obvious that my cartoon needed to be more dynamic and an illustration of my own rather than a manipulation of previously drawn work. This sent me to my sketch book (and cartooning is definitely not my strength) to rework the message I wanted to convey. Ultimately I am content with the outcome of my revision and feel more accomplished as a student and as a writer for having persisted through what I considered, at times, the most exasperating assignment of the course. I think I will always prefer a conventional essay to a visual composition, yet I have found the value in how different genres can relate to an audience in more meaningful and lasting ways.

When I was writing the composition of two genres, I noticed that it’s writing structure is different from a traditional essay. When I write a traditional essay, I include an introduction, two or three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. But as I composing the composition in two genres, I targeted an intended audience to communicate with them. For this composition, it is necessary to use a creative strategy and rhetorical choices to create an effective composition. 

For my first genre, I choose a political cartoon because it has an extreme significance to influence my audience and help them to change their perspective. A political cartoon is an easier way to communicate with audiences and send a powerful message. For my second genre, I chose a poster because it can help my audience to visualize the situation and grab their attention to make a better improvement. I think it would be efficient to use these genres because it would attract my audience’s emotion. It is also likely that the respective viewers of each genre would want to react in whatever way they can to bring about change. 

For my first genre,  I used an element of logos by telling them if we show our skin, it is not a crime, but when we try to rape someone against their will, it is considered a crime. For my second genre, to get my audience’s attention, I used an element of pathos by showing an image of a crying girl who is abused by a man; here the hand represents a male-dominant society that makes my audience feel empathetic.

The Composition in Two Genres gives us more freedom because it lets us choose our own genres and create them according to their formats. This makes me to be more creative because I have the freedom to choose the pictures and words I want to put in my two different compositions. I really like the idea of giving us the choice to create our own work by our preference. While the traditional essay gives the audience a full knowledge about the topic of depression by using evidence of our research to support it. It is a long paper essay and does not convey any creativity instead. However, the traditional essay has really improved my writing skills and helped me to understand the concepts of research, but at the same time the importance of supporting our claim according to our evidence.

I chose my two different genres in the third essay by evaluating the standard of my audience and the preference of them whenever it is better to transfer ideas in a more easy and creative way or using a more traditional way to convey my messages. Thus, I chose posters and memes as part of my genres for my intended audiences in college students and institutions of higher education because I think it would be better to transfer the ideas of depression through a more easy and comprehensive way instead of writing a long paper, which some of them may not spend their time to read it. After all, I know it’ll spend a lot of time when reading an essay compared to a more creative way for them to look at it.

My genres on posters and memes engage logos and pathos to my intended audiences in college students and educators from higher education my detailing the importance of depression and some of the causes and outcomes led by this issue to help the ones (college students) suffering from depression to get through their challenges and difficulties. But at the same time, it encourages them to move forward when encountering these situations, in order to tell my audiences that there is always someone there to help them get through their challenges, such as institutions from higher education by providing help and advice.

With a traditional essay, I conducted an immense amount of research to help supply the information that helped develop the essay.  As for composing the Composition in Two Genres, I applied the information already gathered to create the visual pieces that were to be used in the composition. This essay allowed me to be expand my creativity on the issue I was trying to present. It helped me get the message across to different groups of people and display the purpose with a new perspective. Unlike a traditional essay, I was able to provide rhetoric strategies within my visual genres to illustrate the issue being addressed.

The genres I chose include a political cartoon and a subway advertisement. For the political cartoon, I wanted to draw attention to the people in power. On the cartoon was a door, on one side of the door is a happy family discussing matters with a social worker, on the other side is two dark figures holding a cigarette and a belt while the kid hid in a corner crying. The purpose of this is to demonstrate the matters that go overlooked within a foster home, to target social workers, the Department of Child Protective Services, or Human Services and make them take notice on these matters. As for the advertisement, there are two images, one image shows a girl crying followed by a girl opening up to someone, the second image demonstrates a vulnerable boy followed by a group of boys with a happy family. The purpose of this is to express the changes that can be made in regards to abuse. The girl crying has been a victim to abuse and because she never spoke up, another boy was left vulnerable to that abuse. Meanwhile, the girl who opened up to an individual about the abuse she endured saved other kids and allowed them to end up in happy homes. The advertisement also includes statistics on the amount of abuse that occurs in foster homes followed by quotes encouraging people to make a change and speak up. This advertisement was made in hopes to reach previous foster kids that have been physically or sexually victimized and encourage them to speak up and make a change.

In these genres, logos and ethos was used to help develop the ideas presented. The statistics appeal to the audience’s sense of logic. While the images and drawings of kids crying, or kids being scared, appeals to the audience’s sense of emotion.

When composing my Composition in Two Genres it was different from previous essay assignments. In this essay, I was allowed to be more creative since I chose a visual genre. My composition rationale was based on my poster and political cartoon creation so I was able to express more of what I wanted to say in this essay compared to the other essays we’ve written. When explaining my visual genres, I was also allowed to be more informal when explaining it.

For this essay, I chose to do a visual genre because it was convenient. I could express what I wanted to express by dedicating a small amount of time to create the visual genre rather than doing hours of research on an article or a website. Furthermore, since my audience is the US government and black Americans, I chose to create a political cartoon and a poster. The US government can conveniently have access to political cartoons because it can be published through newspapers or articles. Politicians would read these mediums to keep up to date with current news. Black Americans who are experiencing the disadvantages of the racial wealth gap wouldn’t have access to technological devices, so I chose a visual genre that would be accessible to the public without using money. Posters can be posted in shops, on the walls of the streets or in public transportations. Overall, I considered the state of my audiences and what genres would they have access to in order to have my message about the problem of the racial wealth gap spread.

The type of rhetorical strategy I used to engage my audience was the use of logos and primarily pathos. In my political cartoon, I used logos by having each brick labeled as a policy that the US government passed or didn’t prevent throughout American history. I also used pathos by having the black man restricted from climbing the stairs by being chained to the floor and having bricks fall on top of him. Climbing the steps would symbolize wealth accumulation. In my poster, I appealed to pathos by using the image of a fist and the word “fight” to give a sense of power and unity among the black American community. I also wrote “march for equal wealth” to demand black Americans to march for equal wealth so that they can gain the attention of US politicians so that they can make changes.

For my third essay, I decided to write about health care availability in America. The primary audience would be the U.S government who does not provide health benefits to their citizens or visitors and conservatives Americans. My audience’s primary characteristics would be conservatives Americans who have a strong belief in classical liberalism and think that universal healthcare in the country will only make the government stronger. I want my audience to understand how important it is to create a system that ensures medical service, regardless of social status. If we guarantee the right health care for all Americans, it will eventually decrease the high medical service cost in America. For the genre, I decided to use a visual genre. I am thinking about the possibility of using a political cartoon that would help me share a message through public figures to criticize the government’s actions. Also, I would like to introduce a meme where I can mock the government’s effort toward a worldwide crisis and how they “help” Americans in need during an economic crisis. For my rhetorical analysis, I have a lot to take to. For one part, I would like to use pathos to represent Americans in need of medical assistance during circumstances such as COVID-19, creating a helpless figure of people and the government not willing to help them. Besides, I think it would be interesting to add logos to my essay, such as a real data comparison between the health cares system in first-world countries and how the United States is the only industrialized country without universal health care.