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Writing a persuasive letter to our London Mayor

In their English writing lessons, Year 4 were tasked with writing a persuasive letter to our London Mayor.  They asked him to help make the city a better place. After learning the persuasive writing acronym, AFOREST (alliteration, facts, opinions, rhetorical questions, emotive language, statistics, and threes) they brain-stormed their ideas and then began writing their letters.

Can you spot any persuasive writing techniques?

Dr Mr Khan,

I write to you in the name of the 500 000 children that live in London. I am very concerned about our health due to the terrible air pollution caused by the 2.6 million cars that run in our city. There are also awful smells that come out of the garbage in front of our houses when it is waiting to be collected. (Stefano) We need more bins so that people can throw their rubbish away. Our streets will be cleaner and our environment, better. It will also really help if we went Plogging regularly. The communities around London could organise weekly rubbish pick-ups. The students in schools and colleges could do that too. (Mikael)

Aren’t trees beautiful? They make our air clean! So why don’t you plant more trees? They smell lovely and look great. All you need to do is plant some seeds then there, it’s done! I also think you should build more bicycle lanes and make sure motorists aren’t going too fast. If there are more cycle lanes, more people will cycle, and Londoners will become fitter. Reducing the speed limit for cars will also help make our roads safer. (Alex)

 There is too much air pollution. People and animals can get sick from it, so I propose that we either ride bicycles, or we have cars that don’t run on petrol. Then there will be no more air pollution! (Ocean) The last thing I would appreciate is for plastic-use to be reduced. Sometimes plastic can’t be recycled, so it would be better if shops sold reusable items that are not plastic. (Alizah)

 Thank you for your consideration.

 Yours sincerely,
Keats, Redcliffe Gardens School