WP3 Statement of Purpose

For Writing Project 3, I will be writing a letter to Reuben Nakian's sculpture, "The Birth of Venus." As stated in the project guidelines, the letter will need to include observations, reflections and insights and how those relate to a specific aesthetic or concept. Another major part of my letter will be the historical and contextual background information about both the goddess and the painting that the sculpture references.

I will be presenting this letter in two different ways. First, I will be posting it online on my blog. This medium will allow me to include multimedia elements such as pictures, and I will also be able to include hyperlinks that will enable my audience to gain more outside information that doesn't directly pertain to my writing. This will be beneficial because it may help the audience better understand the letter.

Posting it online will also make my letter reach a broader audience. As with the first two writing projects for this class, my primary audience for Writing Project 3 will be my teacher. He is the primary audience because he is grading this assignment, and because I want to get a good grade, I will have to make sure that my letter is done correctly and follows the guidelines and also is a good piece of writing. Since all my classmates are doing similar assignments and our teacher will be reading all of them, I want to make my letter stand out from the others. Hopefully, this will make my letter unique and more interesting so it will be something my teacher will enjoy reading.

A secondary audience is my classmates. Our blogs are all linked together, so it will be really easy for current and future English 151 students in this class to reach. They might want to use mine as an example of the writing project, so again I need to make sure that my letter is done correctly and done well. Additionally, anybody with access to the Internet could potentially read my letter, especially someone looking for information on my specific sculpture. This will mean I have to present all my information accurately.

Besides posting it online, I will also be reading my letter out loud to the sculpture. My primary audience for this will be the sculpture. Sculptures are inanimate objects, specifically art objects, and therefore can't hear or understand what I'm reading to it, but I'm going to read the letter as though the sculpture could understand it. This will be a unique challenge because I've never written a letter to an object so it will be a new experience. Secondary audiences for this part of the assignment will again be my teacher and classmates, as well as anyone who happens to walk by during my presentation.

The context in which I will be presenting my letter is in the outdoor sculpture garden of the Sheldon Art Gallery, so there will likely be distractions. In order to engage the audience, I will have to do more than simply just read the letter. I will have to use aspects of oral communication to engage the audience and make my letter more effective and interesting. This may include tone, inflection, volume, and pace of speaking, body language and gestures, and facial expressions and enthusiasm for my project.