Paper 1 Question 1

 4/20/22

Dear President, 

It seems to me that there is a need to bring to your attention a raging and unaccounted-for crisis flaming within the Amazon rainforest. While I’m sure you’re already aware, the Amazon rainforest is the biggest tropical rainforest in the world. This expansive landscape is home to over 15,900 tree species, as well as around 2.5 million species of insects. Of which a large branch of these species is assumed to live within the canopy.

Now recently, the historic Notre-Dame cathedral was put at risk by a recent fire, and the world was made known of it within only 3 minutes. The same is going on with the amazon rainforest, the only difference being that it took almost 3 weeks for the world to acknowledge this. Celebrities poured over a billion dollars into repairs, more than enough to not only fix the cathedral but also fund it for months to come.

However, when it comes to the world's largest rainforest, which produces more than 20% of the world's oxygen, the silence is deafening. And while there is incredible importance in protecting our history, we’re doing little to nothing for our future.

Sincerely, Isabella.

The structure is exceptionally different from the news article as to be expected. My structure is that of the letter with a much shorter word count and slightly longer paragraphs. A large portion of my letter is written in a first-person narrative, whereas the article is completely in a third-person narrative. For example, I started several sentences with “I’m sure” and “it seems to me”, however the news article never included any use of pronouns. I included these pronouns to make my letter more convincing, attempting to create s sense of familiarity between myself and the present. The article's audience was much broader than mine, attempting to address the masses or the average person.

My tone also greatly differs from the newspaper article. While both were written in an attempt to convince and call to action, because of the audience differences. The length of the news article allowed it to come off as more informative, for example, “Official figures show nearly 73,000 forest fires were recorded in Brazil in the first eight months of the year”. However, my letter was more focused on using convincing language “raging and unaccounted-for crisis flaming within the Amazon rainforest.”. The article included a much higher level of formality, in order to come off as knowledgeable on the subject, leading the audience to feel more trusting in their information. And while I incorporated similar levels of formality, I didn’t come off as having as much expertise in the subject, in an attempt to not come off as undermining the president, but still well versed in the subject matter.

Both the news article and my letter were written in the present tense. This was done in my letter to create an increased sense of urgency behind the issue. I still made it clear the amount of time this had been going on, for example, “almost 3 weeks for”. By referencing this timeline and the fact it is still going on, this set my letter up for the perfect call to action moment. The article also uses this towards the end when referencing the sheer amount of forest fires within brazil, then leading it up with the concluding statement “Most were in the Amazon.” this statement leaves the audience reeling, and provides a line that will stay within their minds for hours to come.