Formal & Informal Letter Writing

What this lesson covers

Formal & Informal Letter Writing is a 10-part Class 9 English lesson. Each part makes one point and then hands over to the next, so it can be read in a sitting or picked up again at the part you stopped on. It defines the idea in plain words before using it, works through an example step by step, breaks the topic into its parts and compares them, shows where it is used outside the textbook, names the mistakes that cost marks in an exam, ends with a recap of what to remember.

How it begins

Register is the level of formality, and it is determined by who you are writing to and why. The same request (permission to miss a class) is expressed completely differently to a friend and to a principal. Getting register wrong is heavily penalised, because it signals a misjudgement of the situation rather than a mistake in grammar. Decide the reader first; everything else follows from that.

The 10 parts

1. Register is chosen, not accidental
2. Formal letter conventions
3. Formal language
4. Structuring a formal letter of complaint
5. Informal letters
6. Adapting one message to two readers
7. Where this matters beyond the exam
8. Where marks are lost
9. What to remember
10. Watch one worked through