Expanding the Audience

“The NVIV (Next Vista Inspiring Video) series of posts are written by Rushton Hurley and designed to provide students and teachers with fascinating discussion prompts.”

In Expanding the Audience, Rushton features Matt Maxey who has profound hearing loss. He didn’t learn to sign until he was 18 and now is translating hip-hop music. Rushton gives the following prompts to accompany this video:

“When you do school work, who is the audience? What happens if you expand that audience?

What causes do you care about? Animals? Climate? The homeless? How can you help expand the audience of those who can make a difference with those causes?”

This reminds me that when we speak or write, we need to consider who our audience is. We need to look at age, abilities, and environment. It would be fun to have students write or tell a story to a specific audience. Have students compare their stories to each other.

Please check out the video and think of other prompts you might come up with. Please share.