Teaching Persuasive Writing with Frankenstories

The audience is whoever the speaker wants to persuade:

• Who needs to be persuaded? (Are there multiple audiences?)
• What's their relationship to the issue?
• What do they currently think, feel, or do about this issue?
• How invested are they in maintaining the status quo?
• What evidence and assumptions justify the status quo for them?
• What's their relationship to the speaker?
• How would they react to the speaker’s core argument?
• What power does the audience have? What resources?
• What do they value?

The speaker can have multiple audiences with completely different backgrounds and values.

There’s a big difference between an audience that doesn’t care about an issue and one that is super invested and has a lot at stake.