Help us create a world Without Child Abuse
Inquiry Project
Bumper Sticker
I chose this genre because over the summer I worked for the YMCA as a camp counselor and I discovered that one of the girls in my group were being physically abused at home. This hit me really hard because I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that a grown adult could lay hands on a child that was too young to defend themselves. This incident made me want to become more educated on why adults abuse children and how it effects kids in the future. I chose this particular genre because everyone drives or rides in cars and when you are stuck in traffic or at those annoying red lights, what do you do? Well if the car in front of you has a bumper sticker you usually read them so I thought the best way to raise awareness to prevent child abuse would be a bumper sticker for your car. The audience of this bumper sticker is anyone who wants to help stop child abuse and to those people that feel like they need to report a case. The reason I chose the color purple as the background is because that is the national color for domestic violence and the reason I put the heart with the children’s hands inside is to remind people that children need unconditional love. I felt that a bumper sticker was the most effective way to get the message of child abuse prevention out to the world.
Billboard Poster
I decided that another way good way to promote child abuse prevention was with a build board. The purpose of a poster is to make a statement and I think that the words on my build board and the simple colors of just black and white makes the tone very serious. The pop of red font for “Break the Silence” is important because that is the main point of my picture. It is saying that kids won’t always report abuse because they think it is their fault. It is important for someone who is aware of the situation or has suspicion of it to report it because the kids are too afraid to. The picture of the child with no clothes on and crying symbolizes the vulnerability of the kids when they are abused. The hand placed over the child’s face is the hand of an abuser. This build board is to make people more aware and provides a phone number for people to call if they suspect an abusive situation. The target audience of my build board is for anyone who knows of an abusive situation between adult and child. I felt that a build board would be the most effective because everyone will see it while driving down the road.
Reflection
My process for my inquiry project started when I was exposed to a situation at the YMCA when I found out a girl in my group was being physically abused at home. Every time I sent the girl home at the end of the day and saw her parents, I wondered to myself "Why would anyone abuse their child?" Ever since then I have wondered why would someone do that and what can I do to help stop it. I have done a lot of research and have found that people who were abused as a child are more likely to abuse their own children. Using the CARS method actually didn't really help me because after doing it, I ended up changing my research question anyways. It may have worked well if I had stayed consistent with my question and didn't change it half way through but since I did, it didn't help me at all. I think the best part that helped me in this writing process was finally deciding what I wanted my question to be. Once I did that, I was able to find out all sorts of information using the school library to find scholarly journals and finding websites put out by the government.