【text|text response】In response to the issue of the disused railway yards near the city centre, newsletter titled ‘Getting our future back on the rails - slowly’, produced by the leader of Grow Slow Garden group, argues that the disused railway yards should be used for a community garden, using a thoughtful and determined tone. Accompanying the newsletter, there is a poster and a data included, which follows a similar contention with the newsletter, supports the newsletter using an assertive tone and a questionable tone respectively. The poster titled ‘Dig for Victory’, reveals many children in the background and a foot stepping on the shovel on the soil and mud. It is displayed in Britain in World War Two. A text is also added, which stated that ‘For their sake, grow your own vegetables’. The innocent looking children in the background will definitely gain sympathy from the audience and eventually convinced by growing their own vegetables for the children’s sake. With the use of war, the producer tends to arouse the audience’s emotion to understand the hard times the society has gone through and they understand that their society used to be vulnerable for being unable to produce their own food. The data included about the cost of processed food wasted each year in just one Australian state serves to make the audience who buys processed food all the time, realise their own convenience has caused the planet Earth to pay a big price. The readers will feel guilty and therefore agrees with the leader that growing their own food is a much better option. A trolley with a price tag hanging has also powerfully convinced the readers the consequences of buying processed food will definitely cost yourself as well as the earth a big price to pay. The leader makes a clear explanation before he/she starts to explain the content of the true purpose of the newsletter. This will gain more interest from the readers as they will be curious to find out the truth. The leader stated that the community garden has the chance to bring the country ‘up to date’. This serves to attract the patriotic readers as they will not want the country to be ‘outdated’. Therefore strongly agrees with the proposal of community garden. Besides that, an estimation of a number of people who eat food grown in community gardens revealed in the newsletter to increase the courage of the readers to agree with the contention as some readers might be doubtful that if they are the only one who agrees with the proposal. Besides mentioning the World War Two, the leader also mentioned the Queen. The leader expressed that the Queen has converted some land into a food garden during war when she was young. The use of a highly respected person may cause the readers to follow the Queen’s footstep as the Queen has a very good reputation in the world and so the readers will think that the conversion of land to food garden in considerable. Moreover, as most of the people concern about their health issue, the readers will consider to start growing their own food as the leader stated that the ‘slow’ method, grown from seed in the garden, are going to be for better health. By stating ‘everyone benefits’, most of the readers tend to agree with the leader as everyone will be benefit from sharing your own grown food which you value, which people tend to cherish and value more as lots of effort were being put in. The leader mentioned about old times may arouse the readers emotion as they reminisce the past. The leader stated ‘our Dad or Grandfather’ showing us how to put seed in the earth. The readers will miss their old times and therefore will start to ‘put seeds in the earth’ again. Furthermore, the leader also appealed to reason by stating that the kids spend far too much time indoors. As a parent, they will definitely agree as they experienced watching their kids staying indoor too often. The parents will start to plant some food so that the kids can go outside and breath some fresh air and at the same time, learn to survive food shortage in future.
