Revising a Letter to the Editor
A student drafts a paragraph for a letter to the editor arguing that the public library should restore Sunday hours. The draft reads: "The library is the only free place in town where kids can go on a Sunday, the closest thing we have is a fast-food parking lot. Studies show that libraries help students, and our library closed on Sundays in 2019 because of budget cuts, which means hundreds of kids lost a place to study. I myself used the library every Sunday for two years while my family's internet was off, that is why I know it matters." The assignment caps the letter at 150 words and requires at least one statistic and one personal example.
1. Identify the sentence-boundary errors in the draft and rewrite the paragraph so it is grammatically sound without losing the student's voice.
Read the worked answer
Two comma splices, both joining two complete sentences with only a comma:
- "...go on a Sunday, the closest thing we have is a fast-food parking lot." -> split with a period or join with a semicolon: "...on a Sunday; the closest thing we have is a fast-food parking lot."
- "...my family's internet was off, that is why I know it matters." -> "...was off. That is why I know it matters."
Model rewrite: "The library is the only free place in town where kids can go on a Sunday; the closest thing we have is a fast-food parking lot. Our library closed on Sundays in 2019 because of budget cuts, which means hundreds of kids lost a place to study. I used the library every Sunday for two years while my family's internet was off. That is why I know it matters."
Note what the rewrite does not do: it does not add a statistic. That is a separate problem (see next task). Fixing punctuation and fixing evidence are two different revisions, and both are required by the assignment.
2. The teacher says one sentence is the weakest evidence in the paragraph, even though it sounds the most impressive. Which sentence is it, and why?
Read the worked answer
"Studies show that libraries help students."
It fails on three counts:
- It is uncited. No author, no year, no source. In an argument to a newspaper editor, an unnamed study is close to no evidence, and editors routinely cut it.
- It is off-target. Even if true, "libraries help students" does not establish that Sunday hours matter. A reader can accept the general claim and still oppose restoring Sunday hours.
- It is doing the work the personal example should do. The student's own two years of Sunday use is specific, verifiable by the writer, and directly on point.
Repair: replace it with a number that answers the Sunday question -- Sunday attendance before 2019, the number of students who used the building on Sundays, or the cost of the Sunday hours -- or cut it entirely and let the personal example carry the paragraph.
3. The draft is now 118 words and the limit is 150, so length is not the constraint. What should the student cut or add, and why, given the audience is a newspaper's general readership?
Read the worked answer
Keep: the fast-food parking lot image. It is concrete, memorable, and it supports the one claim the paragraph needs -- that there is no free alternative. Newspaper readers respond to specifics, and this is the only vivid picture in the draft.
Keep: the 2019 date and "budget cuts." They pre-empt the obvious reader objection ("why did it close?") in four words.
Add: one real statistic, because the assignment requires it and because a letter that is purely personal reads as complaint rather than argument. Best candidate: Sunday attendance or number of student visits before 2019.
Consider cutting or tightening: "which means hundreds of kids lost a place to study." "Hundreds" is unsupported; a reader who doubts it will doubt the rest. Replace the vague number with the verified figure or drop the clause.
Do not add: background about the mill, the budget overall, or the writer's family situation. At 150 words, every sentence must serve the single ask: restore Sunday hours.