Text A

Text A is a letter from a charity organisation helping homeless people. The author uses
descriptive language, personal pronouns and a careful structure to make them reflect on a life
a homeless person might have and persuade the reader to donate to the charity.

Right from the start of the letter the author puts the reader into the shoes of a homeless
person. They address directly to the reader and use descriptions like “freezing cold”, “fingers
so numb you could barely move them”, they call the simplest actions a “challenge”, so the
reader could imagine what it is like to live on the streets and start empathising with the
homeless people. For the same reason the author uses a rhetorical question in the last
paragraph of this part of the letter.

Also, the author compares the donation to a Christmas gift, or a gift in general. They use the
holiday spirit, tradition and a common belief in Christmas miracles to give the reader more
reasons to donate. For the same reason the author mentions multiple times how desperately
they need “your” help and how much more you do than just giving them money. They also
address to the reader rather informally, starting the letter with “Dear Friend” and using
personal pronouns to create a feeling of the author talking directly to the person, who is
reading the letter.

In the last part of the letter the author specifies how the money will be spent and tells the
story about a homeless man Harvey and how the charity helped him to recover and start a
new life. It is done for multiple reasons. First one is to add a real example to the description
of how devastating life on the streets can be so it may feel way more realistic. Second one is
to make the charity sound more reliable and to assure the reader that their money will not be
wasted. The story tells exactly how the charity is helping people.

This letter is most probably targeted at relatively financially stable adults. We can come to
this conclusion because the author wants the reader to donate preferably at least 25 pounds,
which is not much, but still quite a bit of money.

In conclusion, we can say that this text is a letter targeted at financially stable adults to
persuade them to donate money to the charity by making them empathise with the struggles
homeless people have to face each day.