Gema Arriaga

March 2nd, 2015

ASAP Cats
ASAP Cats tries to get the communities attention in many different ways about the well being of
abandoned cats that need a place to live and of course love that every living being deserves. Their
organization tries to catch the attention and inform others of the needs of cats especially feral cats that are
breeding super fas. ASAP cats uses many different forms of writing artifacts to illustrate their purpose as
a cat shelter organization, many which attract different audiences. Talking to Angela helped me understand
what goes into writing and getting the word out there for Shelter cats that need a family to love them. By
interviewing the executive director of the program and doing a bit of research, how many different types of
genre are used in ASAP Cats.
Angela Walters Rockwell runs ASAPs Cats Program. Back in 1989 when The shelter had first
started they thought that it was inhumane to keep animals locked up for more than two weeks so after the
two weeks passed they euthanized all the cats and kittens that came into the shelter at that time. The shelter
used to hold around four thousand four hundred cats at that time which is a crazy amount of critters. They
only had enough cages to keep fifty cats in their shelter at that time which is a little at that time because a
bunch of cats and kittens were being taken to the shelter. Only ten percent of the cats that arrived at the
shelter in nineteen eighty nine were adopted the other ninety percent were euthanized. ASAPs Cats is so
amazing because its a no kill shelter. In 1990, ASAP cats became the first shelter in the U.S. to not put
down their cats and kittens.
While I was looking at the website for ASAP cats I first noticed the colors she was using in the
website. I noticed that she had put a little drawing of a black cat, which I found interesting since black cats
are the least adopted cats due to the superstition that they are bad luck. Also the website has a little slide
show on its home page of different cats that they have up for adoption giving little bits and information
about what they do, such as little back round stories that they may have about the cats that have been
rescued and brought into their facility. Their website gives a good amount of information about who they
are and what they are doing which is getting the cats that they have adopted as mentioned before. They
have a nice page dedicated to their mission statement to capture the reader and make them consider

adopting, volunteer and donate to their shelter since it is a non-profit. Not only do they talk about the life
stories on their website but they also have an advertisement for an event that they are hostin Their website
also the option to sign up for a newsletter so that you can get more information about the cats and what
their organization is doing to improve the well being of stray, feral cats and the ones that are already in their
care.
While looking at the newsletter from Fall 2014 for ASAP cats I noticed that Angela likes to put a lot of
pictures of the cats that are in the shelter. This is a great tactic because it reaches out to different audiences
like small children who may not be able to read yet and see a picture of a cat that catches their attention and
even maybe their heart. She does this to let readers know what kind of cats are there, such as kittens, cats,
and even senior cats who have a harder time getting adopted. When Angela writes she tries to inform the
reader of the needs of senior cats for example. She does this keeping in mind that she has to be logical and
try to get to the emotional side of the reader. She uses logic not until to show reason to her readers but since
she runs a non-profit organization she also has to write to the people who are donating to her and giving her
grant money. Angela also has a smart way of using words, for example she calls her newsletter cat snips
which in my opinion funny and a little cute. Angela makes two newsletters a year. On the last page of the
newsletter Angela gives the reader a story of a couple of cats who got adopted, when she does this she likes
to give a backstory of their lives and also how they are doing now. This is a great tactic Angela uses
because it shows the reader that ASAP cats actually cares about the animals that they have in their shelter
and want to know how well they are doing so they know that they did their job right. Also Angela writes a
pretend letter for Santa Claws as she decided to call it and it uses as stated before a fun way with words.
She does this by having the kittens on the page pretend that that they are thanking Santa Claws and asking
him if they can please find them a home for the holidays. As stated before this is a great tactic She uses
with her writing a good amount of cute pictures to tug at the heart strings and make any reader of any age
and gender want to adopt or just even just go to visit the cats at the shelter. The newsletter is so informative
of different types of needs and different types of cats that are there that Angela decided she was not going
to target a specific group but attempt to get everyones attention.
Angela has a flyer for volunteering and as she has the little black cat logo on it and the kitty has
the words thank you written on it. She uses the color blue as well as black. Angela gives two options on

ways anyone who is interested can volunteer. They offer to do cat caregiving and foster caregiving. Angela
does an amazing job offering two different options because someone who is interested in cats but may not
be able to keep one in their home is informed on how they can help the feline community out. In this flyer
that she made she includes two different ways on how to contact the organization to let the workers know
who wants to volunteer and get some information about the individual applying. Angela does an amazing
job again by using visuals in her flyer and putting pictures of her volunteers working with the cats that are
in the shelter. These pictures give the readers an image of the change that some of the volunteers are
making some sort of difference for the community and especially for the shelter cats that do not have any
family to love them. The flyer is doing a good job trying to be logical with the reader by showing them that
there are more realistic ways to help out the cats as state before if one of the readers is not ready or unable
to adopt a kitten or cat the second best option is to be able to volunteer at the shelter or if they are looking
for something short term the flyer informs the reader about fostering kittens and cats.
Angela also has a brochure full of information about being able to sponsor a cat. She gives a brief
description about what a sponsor does for the cats at ASAP cats. Just like in her flyers that have been
mentioned before, Angela likes to use visuals a lot to attract attention right away since pictures can have a
lot more to say about the animal than words can sometimes. ASAP cats inform what happens if you donate
money. When talking to Angela about her writing methods she informed me that she was trying to capture
the attention of the community and inform them and get them to come out to the shelter and adopt, foster,
volunteer and even sponsor a kitten or older cat. The organization has an awesome way of letting the
sponsor know that they are making a difference by choosing a cat that they have sponsored and giving them
a certificate so that they see exactly whos live they are improving. The brochure gives different options to
what kind of donations can be made to the kitten the person who is reading it would be making. Angela
does a great job on using pathos and being a great informant. When talking to Angela informs that the two
rhetorical analysis tools she was trying to use was pathos and logos.
Angela told me during the interview that one of her roles as an executive director is to promote the
mission into the community, which is to inspire people and embrace the stewardship of homeless cats and
kittens. The way she achieves this is by writing, she does it for volunteering, and to let people know to
donate to adopt it is the most important tool Angela has to use on a daily basis. She usually spends most of

her day writing but the genre Angela usually works with is writing emails. This is because she usually is
answering letters to receive grant money to support her cat shelter.
The grant writing is the most important type of writing that Angela conducts since it is the most
informant for the groups of people who are awarding her the grant money. In chapter 16, Academic
Arguments the author talks about having a claim for your argument and Angela does a good job claiming
what she is writing about and gives a good amount of argument which is that cats make good companions,
They need love and attention but may not need as much love and attention from their human companion.
In Academic Arguments they also writer about knowing your audience as well as in
Understanding Rhetoric pages 113 to 139, both readings talk about the importance of the audience and
getting to know how to communicate with the particular audience that the writer is trying to reach out to.
This means that the writer has to know what language to use, what style that is correct for the genre that is
being written. In Understanding Rhetoric, Metamorph talks about how sometimes the writer has to change
their identity to be able to identify with the reader so that they can have a connection and the context makes
more sense to the reader.
Angela says that with her writing she is trying to make the readers think about her social justice
issue. She is looking at matters in a pathos manner. She also is trying to tug at the heart- strings of the
reader to get them thinking about what they are reading and what they can do about it. She knows that if
she reaches out to someone who really cares about animals then they will understand her message well.
Angela tries to make her writing just write so that it touches the reader without being overwhelming and
heart breaking but just strong enough for the reader to understand what she is trying to convey through her
writing. She also wants to inform the readers that they have the power to make a difference for these
amazing cats that need a home.
Angela likes to give telling stories as mentioned before about the cats and kittens she has in her
shelter to motivate people to look into helping them out in any way or form that they can. Angela states that
statistics can be a great tool to let the reader know about how shelter and feral cats and kittens are doing.
The best way she knows how to let the readers know about an individual cats story so the reader can have
some sort of connection with the cat that she is writing a story about. She is trying to get into a logos state
besides always writing in a pathos manner. She says that there is a formula for successful writing for her

genre of writing, which is telling happy stories that demonstrate that you make a difference with lots of
pictures of cats. She tends to have a good quantity and quality of pictures because thats what pops out the
most.
Angela says that brochures or newsletters that do not have pictures or whose pictures are small
and not that great of quality do not get as much attention from the reader and not that great of a motivation
for them to actually make a difference for the shelter and adopt or donate. Pictures are one of the most
important types of writing artifacts that are out there because they are a visual stimulant and the reader does
not have to analyze it as much as one would have to analyze words. Angela tells us that there could be ten
pictures of cats and one can really pop out and steals the readers heart. The main point that Angela writes
all these articles, and newsletters is to motivate the right people and to get them moving to make a
difference in the cats and kittens life.
When looking at all the work that Angela puts in her writing, all the things she takes into
consideration such as what genre she is writing, what her mission is, what is she trying to make her readers
think about or even feel; there are so many ways to reach out to different types of audiences and make them
make a difference in the cats and kittens lives. Pictures really make a difference, personal stories about the
cats; word play which is hilarious and can really catch the attention to kids.