Audience

Marking Criteria - Audience

0/6 - symbols or drawings which have the intention of conveying meaning. 

1/6 - response to audience needs is limited.

• • • • text contains simple written content. 

2/6 - shows basic awareness of audience expectations through attempting to orient the reader and provides some information to support reader understanding.

3/6 - orients the reader.

• • • • an internally consistent persuasive text that attempts to support the reader by developing a shared understanding of context. 

4/6 - supports reader understanding AND begins to engage and persuade reader through language choices.

5/6 - supports, engages and persuades the reader through deliberate language choices and persuasive techniques.

6/6 - controls writer/reader relationship.

• • • • establishes strong, credible voice.

      • crafts writing to influence reader by precise and sustained language choices and persuasive techniques .

      • takes readers’ values and expectations into account .

Sample Text - Excerpt from ‘Forensic specialist Dixie Peters on skeletons and the search for missing persons’ SMH 16-11-17

Ask Dixie Peters which part of a human skeleton is the hardest to examine in the search for DNA, she will tell you it's the skull. 

"I suspect it may be the lack of bone marrow." From skulls, to femurs and carpals, Ms Peters oversees the examination of 750 to more than 1000 skeletal remains samples every year. As the technical leader for the Missing Persons Unit at the University of North Texas, she is a specialist in mitochondrial DNA testing, utilising it to help solve missing persons cases across the US. Ms Peters landed in Sydney this week to address the inaugural National Missing Persons Conference, which brought together law enforcement, government and non government agencies and practitioners involved in the investigation of missing persons. 

Ms Peters leads one of the few public laboratories that performs mitochondrial DNA testing and services the entire US. Her unit received federal funding to run the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs), a free online system that can be searched by medical examiners, law enforcement officials and the general public, and where family members of missing persons can provide DNA samples to aid in the search for a loved one. In NSW alone, more than 180 people are reported missing every week, 65 per cent of whom are under 18. While more than 95 per cent of missing persons are located within a short period of time, there remain almost 2000 people who have been missing for longer than three months.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/forensic-specialist-dixie-peters-on-skeletons-and-the-search-for-missing-persons-20171116-gzmflo.html 

 Sample Text  - The Effects of Nuclear Weapons 

Nuclear weapons are fundamentally different from conventional weapons because of the vast amounts of explosive energy they can release and the kinds of effects they produce, such as high temperatures and radiation. The prompt effects of a nuclear explosion and fallout are well known through data gathered from the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan; from more than 500 atmospheric and more than 1,500 underground nuclear tests conducted worldwide; and from extensive calculations and computer modeling. Longer-term effects on human health and the environment are less certain but have been extensively studied. The impacts of a nuclear explosion depend on many factors, including the design of the weapon (fission or fusion) and its yield; whether the detonation takes place in the air (and at what altitude), on the surface, underground, or underwater; the meteorological and environmental conditions; and whether the target is urban, rural, or military. When a nuclear weapon detonates, a fireball occurs with temperatures similar to those at the centre of the Sun. The energy emitted takes several forms. Approximately 85 percent of the explosive energy produces air blast (and shock) and thermal radiation (heat). The remaining 15 percent is released as initial radiation, produced within the first minute or so, and residual (or delayed) radiation, emitted over a period of time, some of which can be in the form of local fallout. Most of the energy yield of a nuclear explosion is emitted as thermal radiation—light and heat capable of causing skin burns and eye injuries and starting fires of combustible material at considerable distances. The shock wave, arriving later, may spread fires further. If the individual fires are extensive enough, they can coalesce into a mass fire known as a firestorm, generating a single convective column of rising hot gases that sucks in fresh air from the periphery. 

https://www.britannica.com/technology/nuclear-weapon/The-effects-of-nuclear-weapons 

Strategy 3: Swapping Text Types

• • • Original Text Type: Article 

    • New Text Type: Letter

    • Purpose: informative

    • Audience: neighbour

    • Persuasive Devices: simple facts, statistics, clear examples, explanatory jargon words

Example

Dear Mr Hogarth,

We have been studying nuclear weapons in our Science and History classes this year. As you know, the first nuclear weapons were used against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, just before the end of World War Two. However, I realised the other day that we did not discuss the effects of these powerful, incredibly hot and dangerously radioactive bombs. 

Did you know that the heat from a nuclear explosion can reach the temperature of the Sun? The explosion is much larger than regular bombs (often called ‘conventional’ weapons) and they produce radiation that can affect the health of humans and the environment. 

There have been over 2000 nuclear bomb tests since 1945. Most of these have been underground, and research has been undertaken to assess their effects. Some of this research has been done using computer modelling.

The energy released from nuclear explosions is mostly emitted as light and heat. This burns and blinds people close to the explosion and can cause enormous fires, or firestorms, that suck air from around the blast site. The shock wave from the explosion is also really powerful.

I hope my letter has helped you to understand the effects of a nuclear bomb. 

Yours faithfully, Marvin