The Reader and the Writer.

As Ede and Lunsford discuss the role of the audience and the writer, a few things come to mind. First, can one exists without the other? NO. Second, how do we get students to understand and acknowledge the importance of the audience when they are centralized on themselves, the writer?
Invention of the writing piece is dependent on not only the writer, but also the audience. As teachers, we must assist in this invention, helping students understand the “fictional” audience, whether it is the jaded teacher or the persons of which the article is addressing. As Ong states in his article, the writer succeeds in writing because “he can fictionalize in his imagination an audience he has learned to know not from daily life but from earlier writers who were fictionalizing in their imagination audiences they had learned to know in still earlier writers” (11). In reading and in writing, it is important to address this aspect as it determines the effectiveness of the work. In most cases, my students write for themselves—each creating a masterpiece in THEIR eyes. To their dismay, a peer response or a teacher comment slaps them across the face when they have failed to realize their audience. In this case, we cannot focus a student’s writing merely on the writer and the final product. As stated on page 167, “the most complete understanding of audience thus involves a synthesis of the perspectives we have termed audience addressed, with its focus on the reader, and audience invoked, with its focus on the writer.” Based on this assessment, Corbett’s model of “The Rhetorical Interrelationships”,” on page 169, best demonstrates what Ede and Lunsford are pointing out. The relationships demonstrated in the model address how the writer must always be aware that he is a vital and necessary component of his writing, but he must also acknowledge the various audiences, meaning, and messages. Whether it is the fictional audience, as Ong describes, or the obvious teacher audience, students need to invent writing that is not driven by the audience, but writing that has an awareness of all elements and audiences. In teaching this awareness, the slaps may not be as brutal, but rather an understanding of what needs to be addressed for their audience.