Fan Mail Writing Unit

Who doesn't love getting mail? That was part of the motivation behind a letter-writing mini unit I did with my 11-year-old recently. 

We had just finished a stand-up-comedy unit, and that was fun but quite challenging, so he was ready for something a little more straightforward. He's always talking about his favorite authors and entertainers and what he wishes he could ask them. So I figured it would be a good time to brush up on letter-writing skills and give him a chance to do something he wanted to do anyway. It was a success- both engagement-wise and in the results he's gotten: three letters back from people he admires just this week (less than a month since he sent them out)!  

Here is how the unit went. 

Writing Mini Unit: Letter Writing 

W focused on writing fan mail to some authors and celebrities, but we could have done this letter writing unit on any theme, or even just written to family and friends. 

Length of Time: his daily writing time for about two weeks 

Getting Ready 

I had W brainstorm people he'd like to write to. He used a mind map template I found online, but we could have easily sketched our own. It was a graphic organizer that provided space for him to write names of people, and space to brainstorm a couple of questions or comments to write to each person. I encouraged him to think about why he really wanted to write to each person, and jot down any burning questions or specific appreciations/compliments. 

It was handy he took the time to do this mind mapping to organize his thinking up front; as the unit went on, he referred back to it several times.     

Learning about Types of Letters and Format

Together we first listed some qualities that make a good letter. We covered things like: 

• include a balance of talking about yourself and asking questions
• use a friendly tone
• think about your audience (level of familiarity with them, as well as what they would find funny or interesting)
• proofread
• be polite
• spell out acronyms
• be clear and coherent

Then we read through this site to help W learn about the difference between a friendly letter (informal) and a formal letter. The site gave some helpful advice about when to use each type and characteristics of each. The most helpful thing was that it showed the format of each with examples. W was planning to write to authors and entertainers he admires, so we decided an informal letter tone worked fine. But we used the format of a formal letter-- Mr./Ms. in the greeting, because he didn't personally know them, and their contact info and ours at the top of the page to increase his chances of getting responses back! 

Write!

He got to work writing and carried on independently every day from that point on. Each time he finished one letter, he would have me read through it just "to make sure it sounds okay." W often would have a great letter, but feel unsure about how to end it. I gave him simple suggestions for how to wrap them up: well wishes like "Have a good spring!" or a call to action like, "I hope to hear back from you soon!", and that sort of thing. He would save the finished letter and begin writing another to the next person on his list till he had finished all six or so letters.  

Finding Addresses and Other Logistics 

Many of W's recipients were authors. We found a site (here) that gave some good tips on finding author addresses in general. First we looked for the author's official web site. There were often specific instructions there on how to write to them, as well as FAQs so he could avoid asking a question that had already been answered. When authors did not have a web site or an address was not given, we wrote to authors in care of their publisher's name and address, which is listed in the front of any of their books. In the end we found a few other ways to reach people: 

One person W wanted to write to was a comedian, so we sent the letter to him in care of his management agency. Fingers crossed. 

Many popular figures have a Facebook page through which you can "message" them, but W wanted to send real letters in hopes of getting a real hard-copy letter back, so we stuck with snail mail options. 

In one case, our letter (in care of a publisher) was returned, so we then emailed the author through the contact form on his web site-- and got an emailed personal response within two days! 

It was a bit of a hunt sometimes but we found a way to contact each person on his list. 

When sending snail mail, it's wise to include a self-addressed, stamped envelope in your letter to increase your chances of getting a letter back. We made sure to stick one of those inside each of W's letters (we even included an SASE with a global stamp on it for an author he wrote to overseas). 

Wait and Hope

We decided it would be fun to finish writing all the letters, then send them all on the same day and see who we heard back from first. A little contest W's idols didn't know they were participating in. 

The speediest response was from Stuart Gibbs, author of the fun Spy School series. W has read all the Spy School books, but especially loved Spy Ski School since he is obsessed with skiing; Mr. Gibbs was kind enough to answer each and every one of W's skiing-specific questions. 

Next we received an email response from awesomely entertaining and semi-local-to-us nonfiction author, Steve Sheinkin. W asked him some writing advice and Sheinkin gave him some. 

Third, and, W says, best so far, was a package all the way from England from Stephen Beisty, author and illustrator of incredibly detailed and informative Cross Section picture books such as Castle and Man-of-War. (He didn't use the SASE we included; he paid 4 pounds in order to send a large envelope and include a photo.) W has been checking his books out of the library for years and keeping them out way too long each time, and he was in awe to see a photo of the artist's actual studio.

W is still waiting and hoping to hear from a few others (i.e., checking the mailbox promptly every day certain that a reply from Lin-Manuel Miranda will be in there). He has been incredibly rewarded by the responses he's gotten so far: Personal letters! Signatures! Photographs! Answers to his questions! Turns out even well known, successful people like to be appreciated. 

Going forward, I might make writing letters to those we admire an annual mini unit for both my kids. We all need more fun mail in our lives.  

Keyboarding with TypingClub

When I set out to plan my first year of homeschool last year with a fourth grader, I didn't feel clueless about what had to be taught or learned. I had a sense for the upper grades and was on top of reading, writing, math, and even science and social studies and spelling. But something that was not so much on my radar was the need to learn keyboarding skills...

When W drafted an essay or a story or other piece of writing, I had him write with pen on paper, because I felt it was important to work on his handwriting and his stamina for the physical aspects of writing. But from time to time he would "type up" a finished, polished piece of writing, and it would take forever. I would have him work on it for fifteen- or twenty-minute chunks of time here and there and it felt like it took weeks to get an essay, not to mention something longer, typed. At one point I informally calculated his typing rate and found he was typing somewhere between one and two words per minute (WPM). Yikes. So then I tried to make a little more of a point of finding times for him to type, and I complimented him when it seemed his rate was getting fractionally better. He said he'd been taught about the "home row" in school, so I thought just reminding him of this fundamental principle of efficient typing would be enough. (When I was not much older than he is, my grandmother, one of the first people I knew to own a computer, sat me down one day and told me about keeping my fingers on "A-S-D-F" and "Semi-L-K-J." Because I was so excited about being able to use her computer for any reason, that tip alone was the only keyboarding instruction I needed; I latched onto it and became pretty efficient pretty quickly.) But this single tip for typing was not helping W as much as I remembered it helping me. He wasn't truly basing his fingers anywhere in particular when he typed and he wasn't getting much quicker or developing the right habits simply by typing things more often. It was finally in the spring of his fourth-grade year that I realized that he needed more and I looked into an actual program that could explicitly teach him and give practice in the skills and habits he needed. We found TypingClub, an online program, and have been really happy with it ever since.

I didn't do extensive research, but I found that a lot of teachers online recommended TypingClub and when I did some quick comparisons with other programs, the fact that it was free helped tip the scales in its favor. (I figure we can always try a free service and decide we need more, rather than the other way around.) It truly was free (not just a limited free version that makes you compelled to buy the full version almost immediately). We clicked that we were a homeschool (but maybe it is free for classrooms as well up to a certain number of students) and gave a few bits of info and we had an account. W uses it several times a week for fifteen minutes or so at a time, and his typing has improved a lot-- as well as his attitude and confidence in regard to typing.

When he logs in each time, the home screen shows time spent in typing practice last week, this week, and today. It also shows current average speed, as well as last week's and last month's average speed, in WPM. He chooses any of the levels he's worked his way up to so far (there are more than 100 he can choose from at this point, focusing on specific keys or the whole keyboard). It tells him his speed and accuracy in real time as he types, but those settings can be turned off if distracting. It offers a few different modes for support-- for a while he had a picture of the keyboard toward the bottom of the screen and it lit up the location of each letter as he was to type it (even though even then he wasn't supposed to look at the actual keyboard). After a while, we switched the level of support so now it only shows two hands and lights up the finger that should type each letter, but doesn't show a keyboard or where the key is. Every once in a while a session is interspersed with a one-minute video discussing the importance of posture or looking away from the screen to give your eyes a rest. As he finishes any exercise he chooses, he gets an immediate score and a rating out of five stars (it's kind of like a video game in that way and is very motivating). He likes to try to earn five stars on a level where he had previously only earned three or four, and enjoys revisiting earlier levels when he needs an ego boost.

There are some ads sometimes on the side of the screen (naturally, they are for whatever it is we've been looking to buy recently, so W had a chance to learn the big brother aspect of online research).

Beyond the screens he sees, if I want to, I can click "Stats" and see a surplus of statistics (more than I really need but it's nice to look at from time to time):

• How well he has mastered individual keys 
• How long he's practiced on which exact dates 
• A graph of progress overview 
• How fast and accurate each individual finger is 
• Which character he's fastest (f), slowest (b), most accurate (f), and least accurate (w) at

From time to time, this stats page actually provides a great, concrete opportunity to sit and analyze his learning with him. He likes to pore over it and see the charts of his progress.

One thing the TypingClub lessons say repeatedly to the student is that the one rule is to not look at the keyboard. And yet. It's so hard not to when you are learning. Especially when you've made a mistake and want to be sure to find the correct key. Telling him not to look wasn't enough, so I used a trick I remembered learning in my student-teaching days-- a section of a cardboard box to cover the keyboard but allow student hands to fit beneath it. It feels a little mean, but this way they physically can't see the keyboard until they learn the habit of really not depending on looking. We transformed an old Kiwi Crate box for this purpose, adding fins on each side to raise the level of it off of the keyboard and it has worked great.

We've gotten well beyond the hunt-and-peck stage and I'm thankful for that; he's up to about a 20 WPM average these days. I think we'll keep up some regular keyboarding practice this year-- it certainly doesn't require a lot of dedication of time and I'd like him to get a little more efficient as a fifth grader (I've heard a rule of thumb of a goal of 5 WPM x grade level in school so that's the guideline we're using for now). Being able to type for real makes him feel grown up and he treats it almost like it's a party trick-- "Look, Dad, watch me type without looking!" I am optimistic that this year typing can become a helpful tool in his arsenal rather than a source of frustration.