When I first heard about this paper I was really worried because I had to somehow put my research, my research that was labelled complex by almost everyone who read it, in an understandable way. My first thoughts were that I would use an analogy that would be related to something that I’m completely in love with, zombies and pandemics. I thought I could completely disregard everything related to Voldemort and do an awesome zombie analogy that I had planned out and everything, but then Teacher told me that it had to have Voldemort and there I was stuck again. My next thought was to do something with cartoons or animation because I would be interested in something that utilized those things therefore other teens might be too. My original plans were to make an animation, comics/flyer and a blog/facebook page. I’m happy to say that things didn’t go as planned. Luckily enough I was able to keep my analogy but I had to simplify it. I decided to approach my audience in more of an entertaining but informative way instead of telling them the raw facts that I researched, because that would just be cruel and mental torture and my topic although serious doesn’t have to be extremely straight forward and intense.

 

My first draft for this assignment was to make an animation that would be like a breaking news report about Voldemort’s autopsy report (I got half way through this and it was fairly difficult but doable), a computer generated comic flyer that would just say something simple such as “you know nothing about Voldemort so go here…” and a facebook page with more comics and posts about something. (I didn’t think too much into this one.) I couldn’t really figure what audience I was trying to reach apart from FSU students.

 

For my second draft, because the animation was taking too much out of me, I decided I wanted to do an autopsy report and then attach it to a news report and try my best to make it look official. I also still wanted to do a flyer but instead of a generated comic I would do a hand-drawn one just because the comic generators couldn’t incorporate Voldemort the way I wanted.  At this point for the last medium I was still stuck but eventually decided to do a website.

 

For my final draft I ended up with a comic flyer that was aimed towards FSU students, mainly those who are pursuing business, political sciences or something close to that. I think the comic was appropriate because college students are between serious adults and carefree teens, so I thought they would appreciate a cute cartoon and words instead of all words. My second medium was a news article autopsy report aimed at 17-25 year olds which I circulated where 17-25 year olds live, twitter and facebook. I made it a web article because young adults like good internet gossip and are willing spread a good article that they find interesting. For my third medium I decided I wanted to target an audience as young as 9-16, because Tom was around that age when he realized he wanted power and when it started to transform him. I used a website with more hand drawn comics and the smallest amount of text possible. I asked around and was told that preteens and adolescents tend to gravitate more towards websites than blogs and I made the content more like a story than stating what happened.

 

The overall theme for all three media was “Fight the Mutation, Don’t Become a Monster” which entailed the desire for power as an infection that can cause you to become mutated or that can transform you but overall one was to fight the mutative effects and don’t become a monster like Voldemort but instead make it transform you and become like Dumbledore. I will say at this point, I think everything I did revolved around more of my so what then my argument but that was because by relating my argument to different audiences it would be better for them to know how my topic related to them specifically. I also chose this theme/analogy because it would something that would keep me interested and working on it and because I think horror excites people and grabs their attention.

 

I revised this assignment using the feedback I received from the online class workshop, constantly asking those around me for their opinion and just through trial and error. I was told that my article ended up being humorous and funny and that that it was very creative. I also asked after what was learnt from reading the article and depending on the answer I altered the article.

 

This assignment taught me mostly about audience awareness, such as what types of media attract different audiences and you have to be able to manipulate those media to properly portray a message to a specific audience. I’ve also learnt that media is amazing. Each type attracts a specific audience and have their own advantages and disadvantages but depending on what they're being used for can also we effective. This assignment combined the things I learnt in paper 1 with paper 2. It made me realize that you have to be aware of your audience when you’re writing, but it’s always good to have a central idea (argument) in mind as well. The last thing I’ve learnt was how to control my procrastination. I didn’t even think to wait till the last minute to start and do this assignment but rather started brainstorming as soon as I got on the bus after the class when paper 3 was first introduced.

 

When Logan first said that some will like this assignment and some won’t I was worried because I just knew I would be the on the “won’t enjoy” side. But I’m not sure if it’s because of my theme but I really enjoyed this assignment. There were no limits on what you could do or what media I had to choose and overall it was just different and unexpected. I came out of this assignment genuinely wanting my topic to matter and thought of it as more than an assignment for most of the time. This is also a reason why I drifted more towards my so what than my arguments at some points during this assignment. Overall I liked trying to appeal to different people even though there was the possibility of rejection or hate responses.