Question

What are the 3 author's purposes in this text, write a short response on audience influence on author’s purpose. Identify the tone of the section and explain why the author establishes that tone. Paragraphs 15-Remember: What is the author trying to achieve?
Many popular students approach graduation day with
bittersweet nostalgia: Excitement for the future is tempered by
fear of lost status. But as cap-and-gown season nears, let’s also stop to
consider the outcasts, students for whom finishing high school feels
like liberation from a state-imposed sentence.
In seven years of reporting from American middle and high
schools, I’ve seen repeatedly that the differences that cause a student
to be excluded in high school are often the same traits or skills that
will serve him or her well after graduation.
Some students are vaguely aware of this reality. An eighth-grade
boy in Indiana told me: “I’m always single, so it’s tough. Never can
get a girl. The smart thing repels girls. I like being smart because I
breeze through school. . . . That’s the good thing, but the girl thing is
killing me.”
It’s hard to know when you’re in high school that “the smart
thing” is likely to translate into later success, or that “the girl thing” is
bound to improve. That’s why it’s up to adults to convey constantly
to teenagers that the characteristics that marginalize them can pay off
after graduation. Skaters,
punks, and others who pursue their arts with fervor benefit from the
creativity they’ve honed. Gamers have learned both problem-solving
skills and the ability to collaborate through collective intelligence.
In the adult world, being out is in. “Geek chic” and “nerd merch”
are on the rise. Nerdcore hip-hop artists have penetrated mainstream
consciousness. And the nerd prom known as Comic Con draws high-
profile celebrities and throngs of smitten fans. They’re all part of what
Jerry Holkins, creator of the Penny Arcade webcomic and video game
conference, calls “the social pariah outcast aesthetic.”
Adults tend to be mature enough to recognize that there would
be no progress—cures for diseases, ways to harness new energy
sources—without people who are different. Successful scientists think
distinctively.
So what happens to high school’s popular students? Research
shows that they are more likely than outsiders to conform, which
can also mean they’re less likely to innovate. They are more likely to
be both targets and instigators of aggression—whether physical or
relational, which includes rumors, gossip, and backstabbing. They are
more likely to drink and engage in other risky behaviors. Students
who are popular and involved in aggression are less likely to do
well in school. Psychologists point out that high-status cliques teach
the exclusionary behavior that may be the foundation for eventual
racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry.
That’s not to say, of course, that popularity in high school
necessarily leads to mediocrity or worse in adulthood. But neither is
there necessarily something wrong with a student merely because he
is excluded by classmates. We don’t view a saxophonist as musically
challenged if he can’t play the violin. He’s just a different kind of
musician. A sprinter is still an athlete even if she can’t play basketball.
She’s a different kind of athlete. Similarly, we might acknowledge
The worst aspect of the treatment of student outsiders isn’t the
name -calling. It isn’t the loneliness. It isn’t even the demise of
attitudes and programs that are important for fostering creativity
and independence. The most heartbreaking consequence of this
treatment is that tens of thousands of students—imaginative,
interesting, impressionable people—think that they have done or felt
something wrong.
It’s not enough to merely tell them that in the real world, “it gets
better.” They need to know before graduation that being different is
not a problem but a strength.

Answer 1

Three author’s purposes
1. To inform — present observations and research about how high‑school social roles map onto later life (e.g., outsiders often develop useful skills; popularity can encourage conformity and risky behavior).
2. To persuade — urge adults (parents, teachers, mentors) to act: convey to teens that being different can be an advantage.
3. To comfort/validate — reassure marginalized students that exclusion doesn’t mean they’re defective and that their differences can be strengths.

Audience influence on author’s purpose (short)
The author is mainly addressing adults who influence teens (parents, teachers, school staff) while also speaking to students themselves. Because of this mixed audience, the piece mixes evidence and reporting (to establish credibility for adults) with empathetic stories and reassuring language (to reach and validate students). That combination shapes the purpose: inform adults of the stakes and persuade them to intervene, while also providing comfort and hope to marginalized teens.

Tone of the section and why it’s established
Tone: empathetic, concerned, and urgent — with a hopeful, corrective note at the end.
Why: the author wants readers to feel the emotional harm exclusion causes (“the most heartbreaking consequence…”) so adults will be motivated to change how they talk to and support teens. The empathy validates outsiders’ experience; the urgency and directive closing (“They need to know…”) push for concrete action before graduation.

Paragraphs 15 onward — what the author is trying to achieve
The author is trying to make adults recognize the serious psychological damage that social exclusion inflicts and to convince them to proactively tell teenagers — before they graduate — that being different is not a flaw but a strength.