For myself, the preservation of natural rights for persons incarcerated is a huge social justice issue and something I can relate to on a personal level. The genres I chose appeal to an educated reader, because they provide perspective inside prison life in a less formal but more personal way. My target audience was originally high-level educators, and politicians whom are knowledgeable and capable of creating further positive change, beyond the level of protestors and activist groups. My reasoning for this was there are already so many groups and events relating to protecting the rights of the incarcerated, I would like to create something that can raise attention, and further them on a hopefully higher level and greater scale. I am choosing political cartoons and poems as my genres to target my audience because they grab attention and convey meaningful messages in short quips of verbiage or picture. After further consideration, I have decided that a more effective audience to achieve my desired goal would be my peers in the form of fellow students.       This is because my genres provide personal introspect on something people may know about but lack in actual personal experience, which is what I am trying to provide. I hope to show my peers how the injustices of incarceration can negatively affect a person through systematic negligence and inhumane jailing settings.

The current forms of treatment post-incarceration are minimal and sole means of tracking behavior rather than reforming it. Current reentry programs are the same over fifteen years prior, where convicts are released into freedom in terms of various probationary settings, where they face frequent random drug tests and other forms of screenings for illegal activity, but lack in educational or transitional aid. Many cannot afford houses or child care, and struggle to find jobs. Because my peers are in my age range, I hope that my cultural knowledge and life experience can relay my message clearly. Sometimes poems or pictures can be harder to interpret. I find this largely to be true in older texts which is why I am appealing to peers who come from a same background chronologically as myself. The process of writing a poem and drawing images is different than writing in that it requires me to maybe think a little deeper, but it also allows me to put what I have in my mind onto paper without over-consideration of audience and purpose. I find this can be a good way of not losing any of the message I intend to convey which can sometimes happen over the course of writing a research essay. For this assignment my process was only a struggle when I had to import my images. Because I did not digitally compose the cartoon I had to find a way to import it to provide it to my audience, I did this through a jPEG picture taken via cellphone.

My goal was to create something that can raise attention, and further the progression of other advocates at a greater scale. I tried to accomplish this by using language familiar to me, as well as ideas and concepts I had personally experienced. The genre I chose allows the reader to draw his/her own conclusions, but it does this after still providing first person perspective that offers background and context to my knowledge. This is important in order to make the reader feel as if the person sharing these messages has actual understanding and experience in the subject. The comic and poem combined do a good job of doing this because they provide insight AND a direct message that can steer the reader into deciphering possible deeper meanings. I am glad I decided to change my target audience because in doing so I was able to focus more on ONLY sharing my personal experience in order to further progression rather than focusing on appealing to a higher educated party.

Cages

Taken from the wild,

The zoo offers acres to its captives.

But Humans?

Three white walls.

Sixty-Two Iron bars

Forty-Eight square feet

Hard Mattress,

Wooden

One metal toilet

One paper roll

No outside light or engagement

Two hours in the sun

Meals behind bars

Most would prefer the zoo.

In particular,

Its Humanity.

Ironic.

Terence McMenamin, 2019 City College of New York