This homework task asks you to analyze and compare two different texts so that you can review the concepts of audience, purpose, and genre. I encourage you to use the class slides to help you if you get stuck. You can find them here.
Assignment Directions
First, read each text two or three times. It’s a good idea to take notes about anything that stands out to you. Then, compare each text in regards to:
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- Audience: Who might be the intended audience(s) for each text?
- Purpose: What is the purpose of each text? How does each text communicate its purpose in regards to context, content, and/or style?
- Genre: What genre is each text? What are some of the genre conventions that you notice for each text? Based on your observations, what are a few predictions you can make about each text?
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Text 1: New York State of Mind
Some folks like to get away
Take a holiday from the neighborhood
But I’m takin’ a Greyhound on the Hudson River line
I’m in a New York state of mind
It was so easy living day by day
Out of touch with the rhythm and blues
But now I need a little give and take
The New York Times, the Daily News
It comes down to reality
And it’s fine with me ’cause I’ve let it slide
I don’t care if it’s Chinatown or on Riverside
I don’t have any reasons
I left them all behind
I’m in a New York state of mind
Text 2: NY State of Mind
In the P.J.’s, my blend tape plays, bullets are strays
Young b*****s and hoodrats, it’s like a maze
Full of black rats trapped, plus the Island’s packed
From what I hear in all the stories when my peoples come back, black
I’m living where the nights is jet black
The fiends fight to get crack I just max, I dream I can sit back
And lamp like Capone, with drug scripts sewn
Or the legal luxury life, rings flooded with stones
The city never sleeps, full of villains and creeps
That’s where I learned to do my hustle had to scuffle with freaks
I lay puzzle as I backtrack to earlier times
Nothing is equivalent to the New York state of mind
Leave a comment below with your analysis of the texts. You don’t have to write paragraphs for each question. A few simple sentences for each is fine. Just make sure you can get your ideas across clearly.
Post your comment before our next class (Thursday, 2/18)
Audience: The audience in Text 1 may be people out of New York State, and the audience in Text 2 may be people in New York State.
Purpose: The purpose in Text 1 may tell the reader that New York State is a great place in author mind. “It was so easy living day by day.” It is a good example to prove. However, the purpose in Text 2 may totally opposed of Text 1. The author of Text 2 may tell the reader that New York State has some problems. “full of villains and creeps” and “had to scuffle with freaks”, this context constitutes a causal relationship. Because of bad guys, I had to fight.
Genre: the genre of two texts is poetry. However, Text 1 is sonnets,which means the poem need to have 14 lines. And Text 2 is free verse poems,which has not special requirement. For the Text 1, due to the genre, it needs to stay compact. However, Text 2 do not need that beacasue it is free verse poem.
Text 1:
1.Audience: The intended audience for text 1 is people who couldn’t face the truth and
reality.
2.Purpose: The purpose of the text was to encourage people to let go of the negative emotions. The author used phrases like “get away” and “left them all behind” to communicate its purpose.
3.Genre: The genre for text 1is poetry. I noticed that the theme was about letting go and moving on in life. I think the mood in the text was relaxed. Text 1 gave me a feeling that the author was having a carefree life and that he was throwing away all his worries in life. It also feels like they are being themselves by not being normal or following the rules.
Text 2:
1.Audience: The intended audience for text 2 is for people who lived in New York.
2.Purpose: I believe the purpose for this text is to let people know the chaos in the place he lived. He mentioned words like “bullets” and “villains”, which give me a negative vibe.
3.Genre: The genre for the text is also poetry but the tone and setting are a little bit different than the first one. It expressed negative feelings and helplessness in this text. I believe the author for text 2 didn’t enjoy the mess and chaos in the area. He wanted to change.
Text 1
Audience:
Just your casual listener like a kid or teenager it is friendly
Purpose:
My guess on the purpose of this is just to show what the life of NY is, easy living it day by day and takes about how you can just let it go
Genre:
Sounds like blues as it mentions it but when I read it I feel a sort of PG hip hop kind of feel ( Ex, Fresh Prince of Bel Air kind of feel)( This is mostly likely just me)
Text 2
Audience:
To and other audience as it said the words b(6x asterix)s whatever that means, and definitely something you do not want kids near
Purpose:
To tell you how terrifying NY is as compared to the first one which is sunshine and rainbows
Genre:
Dark Hip hop like I am going to kill you kind of feel, like the recent rappers nowadays
Text 1:
Audience: the audience is the New Yorkers and someone who tries to escape from real life.
Purpose: The purpose of the text is to tell people that days passed very easily. However, we need to do something to make life meaningful.
Genre: The genre is poetry because it follows rules of poetry, which rhymes and expresses in short lines. This text mentions Hudson River and New York Times, which implies New York.
Text 2：
Audience: the audience is New Yorkers and people who are afraid of living in New York.
Purpose: This text reveals feelings of fear and danger. ” Bullets”, “rats”, “villains”, “creeps” all shows darkness of the city.
Genre: The genre is poetry. The author expresses hopelessness and he seems like he didn’t find anything good about the city. Everywhere is dangerous.
Text 1
The intended audience for the first text is anyone interested in learning about how life in New York is like in an ideal way.
The purpose of the text is to express the ideal way of life in New York State. Since many of the examples used included iconic symbols of New York State like Chinatown, Hudson River, and The New York Times, these are just some of the examples used in the text.
The genre of text 1 is poetry. The reason why it poetry is because it has all the structural elements of a poem like stanzas and repetitions like “I’m in a New York State of mind.” I think that this text is to show the wonders and beauty of New York to people in and outside of New York.
Text 2
The intended audience for the second text is anyone that wants to learn about the reality of living in New York and wants to truth.
The purpose of text 2 is to express to the reader the reality of how life is living in New York, especially focus on the social issues in New York. For example, the text uses language like “full of villains and creeps,” “Or the legal luxury life, rings flooded with stones,” and hoodrats. These examples so the social problems in New York like the super-rich, criminals, social instability.
The genre of text 2 is poetry too. The author expresses many of his thoughts about how New York is in reality. The authors feel New York is a place of great social division and creates an atmosphere of disparity from reality.
Text 1
Audience: People who may want to visit and explore New York
Purpose: The purpose of the text is to convince the audience that life in New York is very comfortable and every day spent here is worth it.
Genre: The genre is poetry with different rhyme patterns. The tone is relaxed and full of positive energy.
Text 2
Audience: Anyone that is curious about the dark side of New York.
Purpose: The purpose of Text 2 is to describe to the readers the daily occurrences that take place in New York, such as gang fights, drug deals etc.
Genre: Poetry with a tone that expresses danger and insecurity.
Text 1:
Audience: People who might be interested in NYC
Purpose: To show the audience how an ideal life would be for him/her in NY. “Some folks like to get away..
But I’m takin’ a Greyhound on the Hudson River line”. The author believes you can never get tired of it; it’s so easy living there.
Genre: Poetry, as you can see by the stanzas and rhymes, like “blues” and “news”.
Text 2:
Audience: People around the author’s age, where she/he can be informal and expressive, who are curious about NYC
Purpose: To inform people the reality of the place he/she lives in. The author uses words like “full of black rats” and “scuffle with freaks” to give the audience an image of how it really is in NYC.
Genre: Poetry, a lot of rhyming.
Text 1
Audience: The audience for this text might be people who live in New York State, especially NYC area.
Purpose: The purpose of this text might be encourage people to set themselves free, stay out the exhausting life and kick off their negative emotions.
Genre: The Genre for text 1 is poetry. I have noticed that many lines of this text, end with words that with similar syllable, such as “line” “mind”, etc.
Text 2
Audience: The audience for this text might be people who live in New York State, and they are sick of this living environment.
Purpose: The purpose of this text was to expose the darkness of the big cities or the whole nation. The author used “dark” multiple times in this text, which implies that the life was hopeless and evil. Words like vilains, creeps work for the same function.
Genre: The Genre for text 2 is poetry, but different from the first text, it is more informal, or free styled poem. As Junwei mentioned in his post, it is like rapper in late 20th century.
Text 1:
Audience: People who are interested in learning about life in NY
Purpose: Explaining his view point of his life in NYC
Genre: Informative Poetry
Text 2:
Audience: similar to text 1 its to people interested in life in NY
Purpose: Contrast to Text 1 it is talking about the suffering in NY
Genre: Poetry and informal when compared to text 1
The intended audience could be people that don’t live in the city. Compared to the audience of text 1, text 2 has an audience that lives in the city. The poem touches upon certain topics that people in the city would most likely know about.
The purpose of text 1 is to show how New York is actually a nice area to stay in. The poem shows how some people like to get away from the city from time to time, however, the author writes that he actually enjoys staying in the city. Text 2 is trying to bring awareness to the bad in the city. Using lines like, “That’s where I learned to do my hustle had to scuffle with freaks” show how people in the city need to adjust themselves to the life style here. This contradicts the purpose of the first text since it helps give reason why some people would want to leave the city.
The first text is a poem and the overall tone of the poem is positive when talking about the city. In a sense you could say that it is romanticizing a lifestyle in New York. Looking at the second text, you could say that it is also a poem but the tone is completely different. The tone is filled with very aggressive vocabulary like rats, freaks, and villains.
Text 1: Regular New Yorker
Purpose: Telling the audience to face reality, it a boring city with day to day being repeated.
Genre: Poem
Text 2: People that comes out at night
Purpose: The night time of New York is dangerous , it very dark.
Genre: Song
1. Audience: Text 1 is for people who live outside of New York while, Text 2 is directed towards people who live in New York
2. Purpose: The purpose of text 1 is to give the audience an incite on the New York lifestyle. While, the audience for text 2 are supposed to find it relatable.
3. Text 1 could be a poetry while text 2 is the lyrics of a hip-hop genre song.