Writing to the School Board: Register, Evidence, and Generalisation
You are writing a formal letter to the school board at your Dutch secondary school. The board plans to cut the annual Book Week budget from €4,000 to €1,000. Your English teacher asks you to write a 250-word argumentative letter proposing a compromise: keep €2,500 and use students as volunteers. You have two sources: a school survey showing that 62% of students bought at least one book during Book Week, and a local bookshop's letter saying sales drop 30% without school events. Your draft opens: 'Hey board, you can't be serious about killing Book Week!' It includes the sentence 'Everyone knows reading is important.' You must revise the letter for register, audience, and evidence. The rubric penalises unsupported generalisations and informal openings.
1. Rewrite the opening two sentences for the school board. Explain three changes you made and why.
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Original: 'Hey board, you can't be serious about killing Book Week!' Revised: 'Dear members of the school board, I am writing to propose a compromise on the Book Week budget. Reducing the budget from €4,000 to €1,000 would seriously weaken an event that 62% of students used to buy at least one book.' Changes: (1) 'Hey board' becomes a formal salutation because the audience is a decision-making body; (2) 'killing' becomes 'seriously weaken' because the original is emotional and imprecise; (3) the survey figure is added because the board responds to evidence, not outrage. The revision keeps the writer's opposition but makes it arguable. It also names the proposal - €4,000 to €1,000 - so the board knows exactly what is at stake. A strong answer explains register, audience, and evidence, not just vocabulary.
2. Which source should carry more weight in the letter: the school survey or the bookshop's letter? Justify your choice for this audience.
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Use both, but lead with the school survey. The board's mandate is students, so 62% of students buying a book is directly relevant to the school's purpose. The bookshop letter is supporting evidence about community impact, but it comes from an interested party: a business that loses 30% of sales has a financial stake. That does not make it false, but it is weaker as primary proof. A strong letter cites the survey first, then uses the bookshop as corroboration: 'Local bookshop X reports a 30% drop without school events, which suggests the loss extends beyond school.' Do not treat the two sources as equal; the rubric rewards weighing bias and relevance.
3. Find one unsupported generalisation in the draft and replace it with a claim tied to a source.
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'Everyone knows reading is important' is an unsupported generalisation: it appeals to common sense and cannot be verified. Replace it with: '62% of students bought at least one book during Book Week, so the event already changes buying behaviour.' That is narrower but checkable. Another option: 'The bookshop reports a 30% sales drop without school events, which shows the event supports local reading culture.' Note that the replacement does not overclaim - it says 'supports', not 'proves'. A strong answer identifies why the original fails (vagueness, no evidence, alienating tone) and shows the replacement's link to a named source.