For my unit 3 project I am going to educate people about discrimination against people who are a part of the LGBTQ+ community by using what I learned in unit 2 creating my research portfolio. I plan to use the sources that are in my portfolio, and any other sources I stumble upon, to create a memo that can be handed out in schools, offices, public places like restaurants and stores, and anywhere else that people are interacting with others. The sources that I have to help me contain examples of discrimination in different settings, different people’s stories and experiences and how it affected them, and information about the laws that are enforced or not enforced in each state in America.
I would like to make a fairly short memo that is long enough to get all of the information across but not too long that people get bored. I know that it will need to be a few pages in order to get all of the information that I learned onto it but I would like for it to be something that if people pass by they can still get something out of it. I am going to most likely put some of the experiences statistics, and facts that I researched onto the memo to provide evidence and make myself a credible source. I will also aim to keep the writing style somewhat simple so that people of all ages can read and understand it and to allow for it to be a quick read.
I am writing for people who interact with other people, which is everyone. Most people who are not experiencing this type of discrimination, or discrimination at all, might not realize what they do not know about it. I was shocked to learn how much I did not know about it and honestly feel badly that I thought I knew the entire story about what they experience. My goal is to reach them with more information about what people who are a part of the LGBTQ+ community experience in result of discrimination and what others can do to eliminate the effects and even maybe end discrimination.
Hi Zoe,
Your project sounds like a great idea. It sounds similar to what I want to achieve and you make a great point…” a fairly short memo that is long enough to get all of the information across but not too long that people get bored”. Exactly right! The question I’m struggling with is how to strike that balance. Too little information and individuals might not understand what the LGBTQ+ community discrimination truly feels like but too much and they’ll tune out. I guess that’s the struggle of writers everywhere finding the balance.
While this might not help you in your research, I was reading this article in CNN Politics this week…Wednesday August 11, 2021.
“LGBT Americans reported higher rates of food and economic insecurity than non-LGBT people, Census Bureau’s pandemic survey finds”
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/11/politics/lgbt-food-economic-insecurity-household-pulse-survey/index.html
The effects of discrimination are sometimes less obvious but still hurtful.
Thanks for sharing this resource, Ed. We’ve seen over the last year just how a crisis can magnify existing circumstances–making it easier, for instance, to see what discrimination looks like.
Zoe–I would encourage you to refine your audience and your rhetorical situation a bit further. Think about a situation in which you can genuinely reach a particular group of people that you would like to educate about this topic. Trying to craft a one-size-fits-all text can be really difficult, both because it’s hard to determine what to include and because it’s difficult to figure out what your audience’s expectations will be. Defining this a bit more narrowly will help you both with your rhetorical decisions and with your content choices.
Let me know if you’d like to talk about this further!