ABSTRACT:
In this assignment, it tackles on creativity. It is meant to provide insight on the topic of immigration in a creative way of getting the meaning across to the audience. Taking research from the opinion editorial essay, a visual engaging essay is created that addresses a specific audience about immigration and how difficult it is to navigate through the citizenship process. Deciding upon the genre must be based on the assessment of the rhetorical situation on how the United States immigration is broken and regulation must be taken into consideration. The purpose of the visual essay is to communicate ideas through the incorporation of image and text. There are three main components the visual, the audience and the reflection.Within this assignment includes the Audience Strategy in which discusses how the genre is best suited to convey the message to the audience. As the reflection explains the visual piece, choices that were made and the process that went into producing it.
DRAFT
Marisol Vega
Writing for the Humanities
Kelly McIntosh
October 25, 2019
Draft:Audience Strategy
For my visual essay, I opted to do a poster that tells a story. As my topic pertains to the immigration crisis I’ve decided to visually show the audience from an immigrant perspective on what it is like to make a decision on migrating to the United States. The two options are, they either obtain a green card or cross the border.
My intended audience would be targeting voters. In order to solve the immigrations crisis one must take action through election. To elect leaders that genuinely care about solving the issues and not just passing policies that are ineffective or make matters worse as seen through ice raid and detention cells that led to broken families.
I want my intended audience to understand and put themselves in the shoes of these people and the hardships they go through. Most immigrants who make it to the United States are people who are seeking for help, for opportunities and a chance to start a new and better life. They are escaping their homes, their country because of the struggles they face like poverty or gangs. No one should have to go through. Many live among us, abiding by the rules but are put down for being illegal.
Reflection
Creating a poster was the genre I feel is best to communicate my ideas. The option of a poster allows me to visually represents how the United States Immigration and Citizenship system must be reformed in order to solve the immigration crisis. I want the audience to see that the immigration system is broken and understand that one crosses the border illegally because overall it’s a far too restrictive system. In my poster I decided to focus mainly on one problem that lies within the immigration system. That problem is the difficulty in obtaining citizenship and one factor is green cards.
Just like how during elections, posters are put up to help promote the candidate. In a way I wanted to imitate that as well. It is a good targeting strategy used in campaigns and because my targeted audience are voters it fits well. This poster is meant to be placed where people frequently go and potentially stand or sit such as waiting for a ride like trains, bus stops or in coffee shops, restaurants etc. All these places are areas in which you can place these posters and possibly attract one’s attention. I want people to look at the poster, and inform them about what needs to be fixed in the government. This is by voting for leaders that actually have an interest in solving the matter. Instead of having to read pages and pages of information, being able to portray it visually is more engaging.
In my poster I wanted to incorporate more elements of pathos. I wanted to appeal to the audience’s emotions and draw out feelings of aggravation and sympathy because the government is doing very little to solve these issues as well as that these are the struggles immigrants face when trying to obtain citizenship. They want to come to America because they want to escape poverty, gangs or wish for better opportunities.
Composing a visual essay differs from writing a traditional essay because of the creative aspect of the visual essay allows me to have. Although both are similar when it comes to providing insight on a topic, composing a visual essay focuses more on visual techniques used to emphasize points of a topic. While composing a traditionally essay, there’s a particular and formal way to go about it. A traditional essay has components that are common such as having an introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Instead of focusing on just using words,composing pictures, drawing or other visuals and have some written elements allows me to communicate an idea or topic visually. There’s more creative thinking involved as it helps to see things differently which also allows for less stress.
FINAL
Marisol Vega
Writing for the Humanities
Kelly McIntosh
November 3, 2019
Audience Strategy
My intended audience will consist of Americans specifically voters who fit the age range of 18-30s. The reason for this age range is because I believe that young adults who contribute in election will be electing people that make decisions that can ultimately affect them more in the future. Whether if they decide if the government’s decisions are good or bad they hold power to create change. Key issues like immigration increasingly relate to the concern of students and professional making it important that people with that age group to educate themselves on political issues that are occurring.
I want my audience to be aware that the United States government immigration system must be reformed. I want them to empathize with illegal immigrants trying to come into the United States and put themselves in the shoes of these people and the hardships they go through. Most immigrants who make it to the United States are people who are seeking for help, for opportunities and a chance to start a new and better life. Many live among us, abiding by the rules but are put down for being illegal. A majority of those coming into the country illegally do so merely because of how the immigration system actually operates as it is far too restrictive.
With a poster, it will be easily accessible to potential voters because it’s easy to put it out to the public. Just like how during elections, posters are put up in social media platforms or public areas to help promote the candidate, I wanted to imitate that as well. In order to solve the immigrations crisis one must take action and that is through election. In hopes that when they encounter this poster I want them to be swayed in the direction that wants to see reasonable changes in the system. I want them to elect leaders that genuinely care about solving the issues and simply not just passing policies that are ineffective or make matters worse as seen through ice raid and detention cells that led to broken families.
The rhetorical situation I’m addressing here is the need for reforms within the U.S immigration system to solve the immigration crisis. Therefore, I’ve decided to visually show the audience a depiction of the true reality one goes through during the process of obtaining citizenship with our nation’s immigration system. The main focus here is comparing the The U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services as a maze because it is not straightforward how people claim it to be.
Reflection
I chose three images and decided to merge them together. The first image is of the Immigration of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that has a crack through it to signify that the system itself is broken. While the second image is a maze as it reflects the path that one who wishes to gain citizenship endures. It is not a straight and narrow path but instead it fills with dead ends and and can be long and confusing. The last image is of a family holding each others hand as they are walking with eager. As I try to portray them in a way that shows that their goal is trying to gain access into the United States.
The combination of these images allows me to show how difficult it is to navigate through disorienting immigration rules and requirements within the U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services. I also incorporated some written text in the poster that says, “The Immigration system is broken, We need reforms, We need better leaders,” in all caps to make it loud and clear as a way to show that this issue requires immediate attention.
Creating a poster is the genre I feel was best to communicate my ideas because of my intended audience. Since my audience are voters I wanted to make connections to campaigning strategies during elections. Posters are put up to help promote the candidate as it is a good targeting strategy. This poster is meant to be placed where people frequently go and potentially stand or sit such as waiting for a ride like trains, bus stops or in coffee shops, restaurants etc. I want people to look at the poster, and make them aware that we need to fix our immigration system and have reforms that provide people with a real path towards citizenship with less restrictive rules. I also opted to have a color scheme of red and blue because it is typically seen in campaign posters as well.
In my poster I incorporate elements of pathos and logos. I wanted to appeal to the audience’s emotions and draw out feelings of aggravation and empathy because the government is doing very little to solve the issue. Having the image of the family with the two little kids, one who is a toddler and one who is a baby draws emotions of more empathy because they go through this at such a young age. As for the elements of logos I wanted to appeal to the audience’s sense of logic my giving them a fact that states, “More than 100,000 legal immigrants — 28 percent of the family-sponsored and employment-based lines with quotas — waited a decade or more to apply for a green card in 2018.” This gives them an example on how the immigration operates and a number on how long it can take to gain citizenship. The long waits are too long and are unreasonable.
Composing a visual essay differs from writing a traditional essay because of the creative aspect of the visual essay allows me to have. Although both are similar when it comes to providing insight on a topic, composing a visual essay focuses more on visual techniques used to emphasize points of a topic. While composing a traditionally essay, there’s a particular and formal way to go about it. A traditional essay has components that are common such as having an introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. There’s more creative thinking involved as it helps to see things differently and how I will approach it. Instead of having to read pages and pages of information, being able to portray it visually is more engaging.
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