Matching Style to Task and Audience
Aligned to W.11-12.4 — Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts.
What this lesson teaches
Clear writing fits its situation — the same content demands different diction, sentence length, and tone for a scholarship committee, a city council, or a peer. Analyze task, purpose, and audience first, then let those constraints drive every choice of word and structure.
Worked example
Asking for a deadline extension, an email to a professor stays formal and states the reason once — 'A family emergency required travel this week' — while a text to a teammate can be loose and quick; the request is identical, but the audience decides the register.
Practice questions
- Take one message and identify its task, purpose, and audience explicitly.
- Draft it for a formal audience, then rewrite the same content for an informal one.
- Explain which specific choices — word, length, tone — changed between the two and why the audience required each.
Watch the lesson
Every lesson comes with a video taught in English and Spanish — the same video the QR code in the printed workbook opens.
▶ Watch this lessonEn español
Ajustar el Estilo a la Tarea y al Público
La escritura clara se ajusta a su situación — el mismo contenido exige distinta dicción, longitud de oración y tono para un comité de becas, un cabildo o un compañero. Analiza primero la tarea, el propósito y el público, y deja que esas restricciones guíen cada elección de palabra y estructura.
Ejemplo: Al pedir una prórroga, un correo a un profesor se mantiene formal y da la razón una vez — 'Una emergencia familiar exigió viajar esta semana' — mientras que un mensaje a un compañero puede ser suelto y rápido; la petición es idéntica, pero el público decide el registro.
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