Task, Audience, and Purpose When Writing

Lately I have been pinning a large button on the lapel of my jacket when I deliver professional development for writing instruction that says: AUDIENCE, TASK, PURPOSE. I wear the button as a reminder to participants that they should teach their students to always be mindful of the audience, task, and purpose when they write because these elements influence a number of important decisions that a writer must make, including (McKensie & Tompkins, 1984):

• Tone of the piece (e.g., objective, critical, apathetic, sincere, skeptical, etc.)
• Language and word choice, style, tone of the piece
• Type of information and level of detail to include in the piece
• How to arrange and present the information

The fourth of ten Common Core writing standards requires students to be aware of task audience and purpose as early as grade three:

Writing Anchor Standard #4: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

The Common Core website provides this description about Standard #4:

“Students adapt their communication in relation to audience, task, purpose, and discipline. They set and adjust purpose from reading, writing, speaking listening and language use as warranted by the task. They appreciate nuances, such as how the composition of an audience should affect tone when speaking and how the connotations of words affect meaning. They also know that different disciplines call for different types of evidence (e.g., documentary evidence in history, experimental evidence in science).”

The March issue of the ASCD Express free e-newsletter focused on Writing for a Purpose. The introduction to the newsletter points out that many students struggle to articulate a reason for writing beyond getting a grade, and includes two feature article related to this topic:

• Purpose and Control Gets Young Writers “Running to the Table” by Marlene Kimble
• Four Audiences That Add Meaning to Writing Assignments by Pooja Patel

Here are a few other resources that support teaching students about audience, task, and purpose:

• Learn Zillion lesson: Analyze a writing prompt to determine task, purpose, audience
• A YouTube video titled Writing: Task, Purpose, and Audience that includes a review of the rhetorical elements Ethos, Pathos, and Logos and how awareness of audience plays a role in determining how an argument piece might be written

You should also visit a previous Literacy Lines post written by one of our Keys to Literacy trainers, Shauna Cotte, titled Motivate Writers with Authentic Audiences.