Example Scrapbook Entries

You might want to take photos or screenshots of your work and upload those as JPEG files with your annotations and comments.

Text 1: A packet of the popular cheesy snack "Quavers"

Alternatively, you could link to texts you find interesting and organise your comments underneath the link:

Text 2: A description of the ride 'Nemesis' from the Alton Towers website.

Audience: People intending to visit Alton Towers, age range of 15-40 (?) Perhaps predominantly male.
Purpose: To inform readers of the features of Nemesis. This text has a secondary purpose to persuade us to visit Alton Towers
Format: It's a page from the Alton Towers website.
Interesting Language Features: Use of "stats" to seem informal but also to give quick, at-a-glance information about the ride for its readers. Use of the rule of three "one of the most heart-pounding, exciting and exhilarating rides" to entice readers with positive adjectives and impressions. It also opens with a rhetorical question "are you ready to meet your nemesis?", almost as a challenge to those readers who are brave enough to go on this ride. The name of the ride "Nemesis" is also interesting - it means an enemy, which again sets up the idea that this is a ride that needs to be "defeated" in some way.
How technology has influenced this text: As it's on a website, the text has links to "Media Gallery" and "Reviews", allowing a reader instant access to other people's opinions and different ways of viewing Nemesis. The bottom of the page also contains links to purchasing tickets, reinforcing the text's secondary purpose of trying to persuade the audience to visit Alton Towers. It's also able to embed video, meaning that this text can use different types of media to interact with its audience.

Or, you could copy and paste your texts into the body of the blog posts themselves and then publish your comments.

Text 3: The scrolling credits from the opening of the film 'Star Wars'

It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a
hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic
Empire.
During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the
Empire's ultimate weapon, the Death Star, an armored space station
with enough power to destroy an entire planet.
Pursued by the Empire's sinister agents, Princess Leia races home
aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her
people and restore freedom to the galaxy...


Audience: Cinema-goers, fans of sci-fi. Possibly teenage boys due to the content of the film itself.
Purpose: To set the scene and the story in motion - to provide background information to the people watching the film!
Format: Scrolling credits
Interesting Language Features: Exciting choices of verbs and adjectives to make the story sound exciting and fast-paced, such as "races" "striking" and "ultimate weapon". The use of ellipsis "..." leaves it on a cliffhanger to hook the audience. It also gives us information on the major characters, describing the Galactic Empire as "evil" and makes Princess Leia seem powerful by describing "her" starship. The use of "restore freedom" makes it clear that Leia is a good character within the film, and phrases like "enough power to destroy an entire planet" raise the stakes and set up an exciting film for the audience.
How the gender of the audience might've influence this text: The primary audience for this text is the people who would be watching the film "Star Wars" - typically male teenagers and young adults. The use of dynamic and exciting language like "steal secret plans" helps to appeal to their interest in action, and introducing a "Princess" figure who needs to be saved might also reinforce some gender stereotypes!

Categorising Response #1

Text A - Resignation Letter From Burger King

 

 

Text B - Opening of an article from the BBC News Website

 

Scientists have used plant samples collected in the mid-19th Century to identify the pathogen that caused the Irish potato famine.

A plant pest that causes potato blight spread to Ireland in 1845 triggering a famine that killed one million people.

DNA extracted from museum specimens shows the strain that changed history is different from modern day epidemics, and is probably now extinct.

Other strains continue to attack potato and tomato crops around the world.

The fungus-like infection causes annual losses of enough potatoes to feed hundreds of millions of people a year.

Text C - Advice for young people on how to use Facebook safely

Looking to Login at Facebook.com? Well before you do take a moment to read our advice to help you stay safe on Facebook. There are lots of safety and privacy controls on Facebook so always use them.
Like all social networking websites, Facebook is only as good as the people using it so you might come across things which are upsetting, illegal or offensive in other ways.
If you're under 13 then Facebook's rules say you can't use the site and if you're older, Facebook warns parents they should think about supervision. After all, if you join up then you're inviting total strangers into your home!

My response
I'm grouping Texts A, B and C together because they all have the purpose to inform. Text A is a resignation letter for Burger King, aimed at the management and written by an employee. Because it's a resignation letter, it should be quite formal, and mostly the producer reflects this with the use of high-register lexis such as "tendering" and the use of letter features such as "Dear Management". However, they're obviously quite angry about their time in Burger King and want to inform their employer of how bad their time at the restaurant has been - to do this they choose adjectives such as "brutal" and "nasty" and the use of declaratives such as "I don't need or want one" create quite a confrontational tone. The text is also written in the present tense, perhaps to give a sense of immediacy; this is something shared by all three texts in this group.

Because it's on the BBC News Website, and therefore likely to be read by a wider audience, Text B is going to have a more neutral tone for its audience of mainly adults. Like Text A used the lexical field of employment in its letter, Text B uses many scientific terms to communicate and inform us around of its subject matter, such as "pathogen" and "specimens". However, it is likely that these terms would be familiar to the intended audience here, particularly as they could access the story by clicking on a website link - they have chosen to read it. It also follows the journalistic conventions of giving a clear summary of the main points in the story in that opening sentence, to make it clear for readers what the article is going to be about.

Text C, because it's written to give children information, uses simpler vocabulary such as "lots of" and "total strangers". It's aiming for a lively and informal tone here through its use of rhetorical questions "Looking to login at Facebook.com?". The use of alliteration here also helps to create a lively and entertaining feel to the advice. It uses conditionals to give clear information to its audience of children - "if you're under 13, then Facebook rules say". However, it doesn't want to appear too threatening or frightening with the information it gives, which perhaps explains the "!" at the end of the point about "total strangers".