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Brochures: Writing for Audience and Purpose - ReadWriteThink

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LESSON PLAN

Brochures: Writing for Audience and Purpose

Grades

9 12

Lesson Plan Type

Unit

Estimated Time

Nine 50minute sessions

Lesson Author

Deborah Dean
Provo, Utah

Publisher

PREVIEW
OVERVIEW
This brochure assignment follows another writing assignment, giving students the opportunity to see how shifting
purposes and audiences creates changes in their strategies as writersin the stance they take, in the information
they use or leave out, and in the processes they follow to complete the task. After exploring published brochures,
students determine key questions about their previouslyused topic by first generating their own questions and
then asking others what they would want to know. They then research the topic to find answers to three key
questions. Finally, they work through the writing process to create their own informative brochure which
incorporates visual elements as part of the informative communication. During the process, they reexamine
sample brochures, looking for the types of texts included and how the text is laid out on the page.
FEATURED RESOURCES
Brochure Inquiry: This handout guides students in considering questions related to their topic and then asking
others to suggest important questions, as well.
Evaluative Reading: This handout gives students specific guidance in peer reviewing a classmate's brochure.
Printing Press: Students can use this online tool to create brochures, flyers, booklets, and newspapers.
FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE
In the book, Strategic Writing, Deborah Dean explains this brochure lesson as a way to help students understand
that writing for differing purposes and audiences may require using different genres, different information, and
different strategies. Developing a sense of audience and purpose in writing, in all communication, is an important
part of growth as a writer. Shifting from one genre with its incumbent audience and purpose to another, builds
sensitivity to these factors in students. Additionally, today's students are confronted by a variety of texts that
integrate verbal and visual materials to create a unified message. Creating a text that combines verbal and visual
elements can develop students' ability to navigate increasingly complex uses of text types in their world,
especially their world online.
Further Reading
Dean, Deborah. Strategic Writing: The Writing Process and Beyond in the Secondary English Classroom. Urbana,
IL: NCTE 2006.
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STANDARDS
NCTE/IRA NATIONAL STANDARDS FOR THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS
1.

Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and
of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and
demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and
nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.

3.

Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They
draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word
meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features
(e.g., soundletter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).

4.

Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to
communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.

5.

Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements
appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.

6.

Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation),
media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.

7.

Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems.
They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts,
artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.

8.

Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer
networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.

RESOURCES & PREPARATION

MATERIALS AND TECHNOLOGY
A collection of informative brochures
STUDENT INTERACTIVES
Grades K 12 | Student Interactive | Writing & Publishing Prose
Printing Press
The interactive Printing Press is designed to assist students in creating newspapers,
brochures, and flyers.

PRINTOUTS
Brochure Investigation Sheet
Writing Brochures
Brochure Inquiry
Brochure Research Guide

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Evaluative Reading
Questions for Reflection: Brochures
ReadWriteThink Printing Press Brochure Layouts

WEBSITES
Get It Write
A Teacher's Guide to Fair Use and Copyright
PREPARATION
Have students complete another writing assignment, preferably a paper that requires inquiry and has a
different purpose (such as persuasion or argumentation) and a primary audience of the teacher. Although this
unit can be taught by itself, it more effectively accomplishes the desired objectives if it is taught after
students have written a paper for another purpose: to persuade or to take a stand, rather than to inform. For
an example that uses this strategy after both a research paper that requires students to take a stand and a
reversal paper, see page 98110 of Dean's Strategic Writing.
Gather informative brochures from a variety of sources. You can collect in a range of placescar dealerships,
college campuses, school counseling offices, doctors' offices, visitors' bureaus, and so forth.
Check the Brochure Assignment, and decide if changes are needed. If necessary, your own version of the
brochure can be created using a word processing program or using the Printing Press.
Review Websites in the Resources section, and prepare handouts as needed, making copies or overhead
transparencies of the Investigation Sheet, Assignment, Inquiry Sheet, Research Guide, Evaluative Reading, and
Questions for Reflection.
Arrange for time in library to conduct inquiry and gather visuals.
Make sure access to computers is available for students to format and print their brochures.
Test the Printing Press on your computers to familiarize yourself with the tools and ensure that you have the
Flash plugin installed. You can download the plugin from the technical support page.

INSTRUCTIONAL PLAN
STUDENT OBJECTIVES
Students will
explore how texts work more or less effectively.
understand how writing reflects purpose through genres, writer stance, content, and presentation.
use strategies for inquiry, investigation, drafting, and revision effectively to create an informative brochure.
reflect on how their use of strategies for this assignment can help them in future writing situations.
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SESSION ONE
1. Ask students what they already know about brochures. Be sure to have students consider anticipated
audiences and possible purposes. They should note that usually brochures are written for an interested
audience (after all, who would pick up a brochure to read it if the topic wasn't of interest to them?).
2. Have students investigate brochures in small groups. Using the Investigation Sheet (one per group), have them
draw conclusions about the characteristics of brochures and how those characteristics are responses to the
intended audiences and purposes.
3. After small groups have finished their investigations, bring the class together to summarize the findings.
4. Encourage students to make connections between audience/purpose and characteristics to reinforce the
concepts.
5. Pass out the Assignment, which is presented as a brochure. It models some of what the assignment asks
students to do as well as gives them information they need about the assignment and serves as the grade
sheet for the completed brochure.
6. If, as suggested, students are writing the brochure on the same topic as a previous paper with a different
purpose, topic selection is already done. If, however, teachers choose to have students write the brochure as
a standalone unit, they should allow time and procedures to help students select appropriate and interesting
topics. This would add, probably, another session into the plan at this point.
7. Give students the Inquiry Sheet for their homework, which asks them to to predict the questions a person
might have about the topic and then directs them to ask at least three other people what they think the top
four or five questions are about that topic. Students then synthesize what they see as they primary important
questions an audience would want answered by a brochure on the topicand they come to class ready to
conduct inquiry on those questions.
SESSION TWO
1. Check whether students have completed the Inquiry Sheet, which was assigned as their homework.
2. If students have trouble synthesizing the questions, have them work on them in small groups for a short time
to ensure that everyone has questions ready.
3. Briefly discuss what students have found from the procedure that was interesting. Frequently, students find
that the questions they had originally considered either weren't accurate representations of what others
wanted to know about the topic or were inadequatethey rarely find that their own preconceived ideas were
entirely accurate.
4. Make a point of noting how asking others for questions can help us consider audience needs more effectively.
5. Give students the Brochure Research Guide and have them write the four or five questions that will be key to
the brochure in the column on the left.
6. Next, have them write what they already know about the answer to the question in the column in the center.
7. In the column on the right, have them jot smaller questions that still need to be answered in order to
thoroughly address the question in the left column.
8. When they go to the library to get their answers, have students keep track of sources on the back of the
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research guide and note their answers in their own words in the last column.
9. Explain that when they have collected their research, all the information will be grouped by the question it
answers so they can draft easily. Remind students that the sources are required on the center back panel of
the brochure.
10. Give students time to conduct inquiry. Depending on students, this may take one or two sessions.
SESSION THREE
1. When students have conducted sufficient inquiry so that they are ready to begin drafting, have them look at
the sample brochures again to notice the different text types that brochures use to convey information. They
should identify the following:
Lists
Paragraphs
Charts
Graphs
Pictures and captions
Maps
2. Ask students to consider and discuss why brochure writers might choose one text type over another.
In this discussion, students should consider audience and purpose in a brochure writer's selection; in other words, the
audience of a brochure is usually looking for information about a topic, but they want it quicklyso it has to be easily
accessible. Also, certain types of information are more easily conveyed in lists, while other information might be better
explained in graphs or in paragraphs.

3. Have students analyze the information they have gathered about the primary questions on their topic. For
each question, ask them write the type of text organization and format that would be best for explaining the
answer to that question and why.
4. Arrange students in pairs to discuss their choices and see if the partner has a better idea.
5. Explain any additional organization and formatting requirements for the brochure. For instance, you may
want to require at least one of the answers to be in paragraph formpartly to require students to write
complete sentences, and partly because almost every brochure has at least one section written in paragraph
format. Paragraphs allow exemplification in different ways than lists do.
6. In the remaining time during the session, ask students to begin drafting the sections of their brochure
according to their choicesmaking graphs, writing lists or paragraphs, and so forth.
SESSION FOUR
1. Before students get too far in drafting their brochures, provide a minilesson on parallel structure, using the
information in your class textbook or the Get It Write overview.
2. Explain to students that the lists in their brochures will require parallel structure, and that the grammatical
structure is also good for students to use in paragraphs as well.

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3. Allow time for short group practice with parallelism; and then let students continue practice with their own
lists or sentences. Ask students to check their parallel sentences with a partner.
4. During the remainder of the session, ask students to continue drafting and completing the different sections
of their written text.
5. Once students have a paragraph drafted, give a minilesson on coherence. Explain that since the text
passages in brochures are fairly short, writers need to give lots of information in as few words as necessary.
Despite this, they still need to help readers understand how one idea connects to another. In Strategic
Writing, Dean uses a minilesson on chaining (page 141), but many textbooks offer examples of paragraph
coherence or transitional devices to improve coherence that would benefit students during drafting.
SESSION FIVE
1. Have students look at the published brochures again in small groups, this time directing their attention to
layout design.
2. Have them draw conclusions about the use of font style and size as well as placement of graphics, titles, and
white space.
3. After students draw some conclusions about design in their small groups, discuss their findings as a class and
make sure they consider audience again in this regard: If a reader has a particular question about the topic,
he or she would want to find the answer quicklyand would not want to be bogged down by messy flow or
inadequate planning for getting a reader's attention. Again, the purpose of a brochureto provide information
quickly and easilyhas to be considered in designing the layout.
4. Conclude with some guidelinesthere are many optionsabout how best to accomplish the purpose for an
audience. Be sure to connect the guidelines you develop to the example handouts that students have
examined.
5. If students will use the online interactive for their brochures, pass out copies of the ReadWriteThink Printing
Press Brochure Layouts, and demonstrate the Printing Press for students, displaying the brochure templates.
Otherwise, point to the available brochure layouts students can use in the resources that are available (e.g.,
Word, Publisher). Students might also create handmade brochures with pens and markers.
6. Discuss the order of the columns in a brochure to ensure that students understand the structure of the
printouts. Printout order can be confusing since the front of the brochure is actually the third column in the
printout.
7. Give students two sheets of blank typing paper, and have them design two different layout plans. They don't
have to include text, but they should indicate where titles will be placed, the kind of text that will follow (in
a shaded box to show approximate size) and squares to show placement of graphics.
8. When they have finished, ask students to share their layouts with at least two other students for feedback.
9. Ask peer reviewers to look at the two designs and choose the one they find most visually appealing and
accessible. On the back of the selection, ask each peer reviewer to write the reasons for the choice and to
sign their comments.
SESSIONS SIX AND SEVEN
1. Before students begin to create their brochures, make sure they understand about using visuals and the
copyrights associated with those taken from the Internet.

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i. Students need to have a reason for every graphic they include in their brochures. They need to
understand that pictures aren't just for decorationthey also help to inform the reader at the same time
as they provide interest.
ii. Students need to be aware that unless they have drawn the images themselves, the images that they use
are owned by someone else in most cases. If an image is in the public domain, students need to give
credit to the source for the image. If the image is owned privately, they need to obtain permission to use
it; the contact to obtain that permission is usually available on the site with the image. It's best to steer
students away from privately owned images for the sake of time in obtaining the permission. Helpful
information about fair use and copyright can be found at A Teacher's Guide to Fair Use and Copyright.
2. Make sure students have some basic understanding of design principles associated with font style and size.
Although a number of sources are available, these design principles from the Penguin Handbook (Pearson
Longman, 2006) are a good starting point:
"Make similar items look similar" (p. 141): All headings or section titles should be the same font size and
style.
"Make different items look different" (p. 143): Use contrast to draw the audience's attention to key
features.
"Understand type styles" (p. 146):
Serif fonts (with the little lines at the ends of letters) are easier to read in print, so they are better for
longer stretches of text.
Sans serif fonts are better for headings and shorter texts.
Decorative fonts are often hard to read and should be used with discretion.
The size of font needs to be readable.

3. During the remainder of time during these sessions, have students begin to create their brochures.
4. Review the options available for creating printed brochures. There are templates available with different
software programs, depending on what each school has available, or students can use the Printing Press. For
example, students can set "page setup" to "landscape" and create three text boxes with or without borders to
establish the brochure panels.
5. Be sure to remind students of the order in which the columns should appear on the printouts if they are to be
folded properly. Use the diagrams at the bottom of the Printing Press Brochure Layouts handout to illustrate
the organization.
6. As students work, circulate through the classroom, providing feedback and support.
7. Have students bring a draft version of their brochures to the next session to conduct peer evaluative
readings.
SESSION EIGHT
1. Pass out the Evaluative Reading handout and review the questions. Draw connections to the exploration of
example brochures that students have made. Answer any questions that students have about their drafts.
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2. Arrange students in pairs, and using the Evaluative Reading handout, have students give and receive feedback
on their brochures.
3. After receiving feedback from at least one peer evaluator, have students review the criteria for assessment
given in the Assignment handout.
4. Considering both the peer feedback and the teacher criteria, have students reflect on what they will revise
for the final draft.
5. Ask students to write their goals for revision on the draft so that their ideas are clearly available for them
during revision.
SESSION NINE
1. If necessary, give students time to finalize revisions on their brochures and print out two copies. Have them
hand in one copy, attached to the grading criteria from the Assignment Brochure.
2. Conduct roundrobin readings of the brochures. Include a blank 5X7 card in the brochures so that students can
write their comments about the brochure, focusing on how well it addresses purpose (informing an audience)
and audience (will readers get answers that matter, and will they be able to find those answers with ease?).
3. After students have a chance to review other brochures, have them reflect in writing individually. The
following questions are possible prompts for that reflection (partly taken from Dean's Strategic Writing, p.
143):
Which brochure did you find most effective and why? What did you learn from that brochure that you would
like to apply to your brochure?
The topic for the brochure was the same one as for your ____ paper. What did you have to do differently
with the topic to write about it for the brochure? How might your adaptations be useful to you in other
writing situations?
For this assignment, I provided you with a number of handouts that asked questions or prompted your
thinking in ways that I hoped would be helpful in complete the brochure effectively. In what ways were
those handouts helpful strategies to you? In what ways were they not? How might you use what was helpful
as a strategy for yourself in other writing when I'm not there to provide the handouts?
What strategies besides those you've already mentioned were helpful to you in writing the brochure? How
might they be useful to you in other writing situations?

STUDENT ASSESSMENT/REFLECTIONS
Review the brochures according to the assessment criteria included in the Assignment handout. Students can
assess their own work using the Reflection Questions.

RELATED RESOURCES
LESSON PLANS
Grades 11 12 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
What's the Purpose?: Examining a Cold Manipulation of Language

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With a crafty pen, Truman Capote wrote In Cold Blood to create a new genre and shock his audience. This lesson
will help students examine Capote's manipulation of language as he forces his audience to take a different look at
murderers and consider a different definition of nonfiction. His unique purpose leaves students an interesting
text to consider.
Grades 9 12 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Breaking the Rules with Sentence Fragments
Though teachers usually caution students against using sentence fragments, Edgar Schusters work demonstrates
that professional writers often use fragments effectively. This lesson helps students understand that there are
reasons that they can and should use sentence fragments to become effective writers.

STUDENT INTERACTIVES
Grades K 12 | Student Interactive | Writing & Publishing Prose
Printing Press
The interactive Printing Press is designed to assist students in creating newspapers, brochures, and flyers.

PROFESSIONAL LIBRARY
Grades 9 12 | Professional Library | Book
Strategic Writing: The Writing Process and Beyond in the Secondary English Classroom
Dean introduces postprocess theory to high school English teachers in a practical, classroombased way.

COMMENTS

2015 IRA/NCTE. All rights reserved.

Legal | International Reading Association | National Council of Teachers of English

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