EL P1 Formal Letter Handout

1 Name:____________________________ ( ) Date:________ Sec _________ Situational Writing – Formal letter writing Question: You should look at the information in the advertisement printed on page 2, study the information carefully and plan your answer before beginning to write. Your school has always encouraged the students to participate in self-initiated Values in Action (VIA) projects. The school believes that such projects help students show care and develop a strong sense of empathy towards the larger society locally. Your class has seen an advertisement by a local volunteer organisation, TheKINDLocal, Singapore, and is keen to offer its help. Write a letter to the Project Manager, stating clearly:  which of the three projects your class would like to embark on  when and how many days of help your class is able to offer  how your class plans to organise and carry out the service project  how participating in this project will benefit both your class and the community  one follow up activity that your class will carry out in school to encourage more students to offer their time and services to society at large Write your letter in clear, accurate English and in a persuasive tone, to convince the Project Manager that the service offered is beneficial and should be considered for implementation. You should use your own words as much as possible. Purpose (P) To recommend one event to celebrate the school’s fiftieth anniversary Audience (A) Principal Context (C) You are a senior student and class chairman. Suggested event could be during the June hols Format (F) Recommendation report

2 TheKINDLocal Singapore Volunteer in Singapore and make a difference How many of us have volunteered in schools just to fulfil the minimum VIA requirements? Being pragmatic Singaporeans, we think that volunteering involves losing time and money, or that our schedules are too tight. But what about the intangible benefits? Here’s the catch: happy people give and gain more with volunteer work! Think about taking part in any of our volunteer projects. Whatever it is you would like to do, we are happy to have you come on board and are willing to hear your suggestions. Volunteer Projects SMSS 2017 4E5N PRELIM PAPER Animal Care If you love furry creatures, volunteering at animal shelters is just for you. At Animal Lovers League Shelter, you can help take care of the animals, clean their environment as well as organise fundraising activities. Teaching Faith Institution caters to children aged 5 -10 years old who are diagnosed with mild intellectual disabilities. Accompany the children on excursions, help out with co - curricular activities or initiate your own service learning project! Elder Care At Hope Community Services Centre, which looks after the elderly residents who live in the HDB blocks in the Riverview estate, you can provide handyman and cleaning services which the elderly residents need, or simply offer your company and organise activities for them.

3 Structure Report Yew Zi Sheng Student Representative, 4S3 St Andrew’s Secondary School 15 Francis Thomas Drive Singapore 359342 14 April 2020 Project Manager TheKINDLocal 1 Jalan Rajah Singapore 870851 Dear Sir/Madam, Providing student volunteers to help out in society Paragraph 1-Introduction  states recommended choice  Use of modal to convey polite tone (would like to..)  Use of complex sentence structure Having reviewed and deliberated on the three projects, my classmates and I would like to volunteer for the Elderly Care project and help out by interacting with the elderly and providing gifts and games to keep them entertained. We are able to render help for three half days. Paragraph 2- Body  Elaborates (using PEEL)  Use of complex punctuation – a dash  Elaborates on when and how you intend to organize to carry out the project. Almost all of the volunteers have spent time with their grandparents and they have a heart for the elderly who live alone - many are also unable to clean their houses independently. Our class has planned to split up into groups of three, which gives us enough people to clean up the houses of the elderly. No doubt that the elderly would be enjoying living a more hygiene living environment, our class has also decided that it would be more meaningful if we stayed behind for a while to socialise with them. We would play games such as bingo and connect four, and provide entertainment like singing Chinese songs and taking them out for walks around the neighbourhood park. Thus, we feel that this would bring joy to their world as many of them live in solitude. Many of them hardly have any visitors to care for them. Paragraph 3- Body  Elaborates about the benefit to students We can learn social and communication skills as we interact and socialise with the elderly. By befriending them, we can learn many things about them such as how they overcome adversity and their contributions to building a prosperous Singapore as our Pioneer Generation. Thus, these values that we emulate from them will help steer us to find our path of success especially to be resilient in overcoming the challenges to prepare for the upcoming national examination. . Paragraph 4- Body  Elaborates about encouraging more students to participate Publicity is pivotal to encourage more students to volunteer. What our class plans to do even after the three days is to paste posters all around the school so that the students seeing them can get inspired or they would be curious to find out more. We would also harness social media such as producing Tiktok videos to create awareness and make volunteering a fun and exciting activity! Paragraph 5- Conclusion Restates the recommended choice Letter signed off with a legible signature In conclusion, I sincerely you would consider our class VIA activities as many of us look forward to bringing a smile to the faces of the elderly. Yours faithfully, SIGNATURE Nicholas and Zi Sheng 4S3 Class Chairmen St Andrew’s Secondary School

4 1. Using the Visual Text You will be assessed on your ability to use the given visual text, judge what is relevant and include the necessary information in the writing. You will need to organise the information in the writing. You will need to organise the information in a logical and appropriate manner to produce a coherent piece of writing. You have to use your own words as far as possible instead of reproducing verbatim the information given in the visual text. Generally there are two basic ways to paraphrase and use the visual text: vocabulary level and sentence structure level. Vocabulary/phrasal level Original from VT: Only routine help is needed, for example, helping children with art and craft activities. Paraphrase: Only ordinary tasks are necessary, for example, assisting children during art sessions. Sentence structure level Original from VT: We learn to connect with others and in so doing, we learn a little about ourselves. Paraphrase: We discover a little about ourselves when we interact with other people. 2. Paraphrasing Techniques To paraphrase effectively, you might need a combination of the techniques. It is important that in paraphrasing, you do not change the original meaning of the sentence/text, suitability of the word as well as the Purpose, Audience and context of writing. (The tone and mood of writing must be considered.) Sometimes, direct copying is unavoidable. So do not be obsessed with paraphrasing every word.  Use synonyms Original: Break tasks down into manageable units. Paraphrase: Divide assignments into smaller parts.  Replace a phrase with a word (or a word with a phrase) Original: Many times we let stress take