The first comparison between the two letters, one written using divergence and the other one written using convergence is the length: the convergent letter is longer than the divergence one. I did it on purpose, because if I imagine to need to create a distance between myself and my interlocutor, I would probably write only the main informations, avoiding details, to make it shorter. That's because I don't want to have a conversation with the other person, even though I have to give him some informations.
In the convergent letter, I'm trying to cooperate with the parents of a child who is not doing good at school. As a consequence, I chose to explain what's happening to the child at school, presenting that as my concern. "I'm afraid to inform you that Harry is risking to not pass the year because of his grades (...) I'm worried because he seems struggling a lot with studying at home and complete the homework (...) but we need to help him to achieve good results in order to pass the year".
As I'm trying to help, not just to inform, I chose to write the parents about what Harry is doing good, to ensure his parents that, even though their son has difficoulties at school, he is still a nice guy: "Harry is a really nice lad and he seems to have great social skills that helps him to make really good friendships".
The letter goes on suggesting what to do: "As a school, we suggest you a DAST, a test for dislexia that can help us to know how to help him. We also recommend you to test him for the attention deficit disorder and the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder". I chose to explain the acronyms, in order to let the parents to be fully aware of the situation, and to use too many of them. This is important if we use convergence, because it will lead the interlocutors to participate actively to the conversation.
As conclusion, I tried again to be as cooperative as possible: "If you need to ask me some question, or if you prefer to ask them to anyone else of the teacher team, please don't hesitate to contact us by email".
The divergent letter has a completely different purpose: just to inform briefly that Harry is not doing good at school and what to do. For this reason I've chosen to start in this way: "I must inform you that your son, Harry, is not reaching the sufficient grades to pass the year". I wrote that using two direct addresses because I wanted to create a distance: he is your son and what he does is your problem.
"The teacher staff has noticed that Harry is very often not concentrated in class and he doesn't complete his homework as required. It's obvious that he won't pass his future assestments". I've chosen to not try to seem worried about the situation, because it's not my purpose, I just wanted to inform.
I didn't neither give a concrete solution to the parents, because they won't have enough information to decide. "In the light of these considerations, we strongly recommend you to subject Harry to the following tests: DAST, ADD, ADHAD".
As a conclusion, I wrote: "If you need to ask us any clarification, contact us by email during school time". In this way I stated that I can give them explanations, but I've also implicitly discouraged them to do it, making them understand that I'm not going to considerate their doubts after office hours.
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