Personal email
Share an experience and offer advice through audience-aware writing.
Write for the situation
Audience
a friend or family member
Purpose
Share an experience and offer advice
Register and tone
Warm and conversational, matching the relationship
Avoid
An impersonal essay addressed to a friend
Conventions that help the reader
A greeting; personal connection; developed news or advice; a natural closing. These are adaptable guidance: task, audience and purpose decide the choices.
A flexible route through the text
- 1Reconnect with the reader
- 2Describe the situation
- 3Explain and advise
- 4Close personally
Language to develop
Choose precise verbs and examples. Connect reasons and consequences, qualify claims when necessary and vary sentence forms without forcing unfamiliar language.
Planning question
Which details respond to this person’s situation?
Model extract · Social organization
This original teaching extract shows selected choices. It is shorter than a complete Paper 1 response and is not an IB-marked exemplar.
Hi Sam,
You asked what made my first week easier. Honestly, it was having a mentor who showed me the little things nobody writes in a handbook: where clubs meet and whom to ask when the timetable changes. We tried an activity together, so I did not have to invent a conversation from nothing. If your new school offers mentoring, I would give it a try. You can ask for a different partner if the first match does not work. Let me know how your first day goes!
Alex
Read as a writer
Find evidence of the intended reader, purpose and register. Identify a convention that makes the text usable.
Explore the content
Underline an example, reason or practical detail. Explain what it contributes, then develop the next paragraph yourself.
Connect it to each core theme
Identities
You have taken part in a multilingual welcome project and your experience changed how you think about language, culture and belonging.
Write a personal email for a friend or family member. Describe a significant moment, explain your response and reflect on what you learned.
Theme connection: how language choices shape belonging.
Planning focus: Which details respond to this person’s situation?
Plan this taskExperiences
You have taken part in a student exchange programme and your experience changed how you think about travel, transitions and learning through experience.
Write a personal email for a friend or family member. Describe a significant moment, explain your response and reflect on what you learned.
Theme connection: what students gain from an unfamiliar experience.
Planning focus: Which details respond to this person’s situation?
Plan this taskHuman ingenuity
You have taken part in an AI-supported language-learning app and your experience changed how you think about innovation, media and technology.
Write a personal email for a friend or family member. Describe a significant moment, explain your response and reflect on what you learned.
Theme connection: how technology helps learners and where its limits lie.
Planning focus: Which details respond to this person’s situation?
Plan this taskSocial organization
You have taken part in a school peer-mentoring programme and your experience changed how you think about education, community and participation.
Write a personal email for a friend or family member. Describe a significant moment, explain your response and reflect on what you learned.
Theme connection: how a community can support newcomers.
Planning focus: Which details respond to this person’s situation?
Plan this taskSharing the planet
You have taken part in a student-led food-waste project and your experience changed how you think about environment, responsibility and shared resources.
Write a personal email for a friend or family member. Describe a significant moment, explain your response and reflect on what you learned.
Theme connection: how individuals and institutions can reduce waste.
Planning focus: Which details respond to this person’s situation?
Plan this taskTeach, practise and refine
- Read a real example of this text type and identify its readership and purpose.
- Annotate the model extract, then discuss how a different audience would change its wording.
- Select a theme task. Plan all required actions before writing; develop examples rather than listing them.
- Draft independently, review audience and task coverage, then revise one paragraph.
Teacher language
Which details respond to this person’s situation?
Support without fixing every sentence
Offer an audience–purpose planning grid, a few useful connectors and oral rehearsal. Then remove the paragraph openings and ask for independent wording. Extend by developing an alternative viewpoint or a justified qualification.
Self-check
- Have I addressed every instruction?
- Do the reader, purpose, tone and conventions match?
- Does each main idea have a developed example or explanation?
- Have I checked verb forms, reference, spelling and punctuation?