Audience

The past 2 days at school I've been teaching about "audience". Kids have a hard time understanding who an author writes for and the particular audience the author has geared his or her books towards. So, to ease into that particular concept, I began with asking them how they would describe the word "audience" and I told them I was going to give them particular venues, and they had to tell me specifically the type of audience that would be there.

So, I threw in some typical ones because I knew it would be funny to hear what they had to say. First, I said "a circus"-and most responded with kids and their parents. Then, I said "a nascar race"-as to which I received loud responses of "drunk people!" "rednecks!" haha... which was hilarious because almost every class said that! Then, I said "Church"-and some of them kind of paused... then I heard "old people!" While another person said "everybody!"

I snuck in church because I wanted to know what their perception of church is and it's quite fascinating. I was semi shocked that they said old people, because it makes me wonder (and makes me sad) what kind of church they're going to! Cleveland is definitely "churchy" but we are obviously missing something if we aren't doing something to draw these students in. Our churches will die off, and it will be terribly sad. But I also found it refreshing that some of them said "everybody!" THAT is what it should be. EVERYONE should be welcomed at church with zero stereotypes. There is obviously a huge gap in the 2 different viewpoints shared by my 8th graders and they probably represent the majority. We need to start bridging the gap.