Please Note: this material was created for use in a classroom, but can be easily modified for homeschooling use.
Objectives
- Students will write and illustrate a postcard to a classmate about a summer vacation, camp experience, or other summer activity using a pen name.
- Based on the information in the postcard, students in the class will try to guess each postcard's author.
Materials
- Numerous slips of paper, each with the name of a famous person on it
- 5" x 7" index cards
- Art materials
- Optional: a postcard planning sheet for each student
Procedures
- Have students draw from a hat the name of a famous person for their pen name. (Famous writers or authors are a good choice.)
- Place all names back in the hat and have them draw the name of the famous person to whom they will be addressing their correspondence.
- Using one side of a 5" x 7" index card, have students write a letter from their vacation spot as if they were still there, detailing where they are and what they're doing.
- On the opposite side of the index card, have students draw a scene from their vacation and address it to the recipient.
- Collect and redistribute the postcards over any period of time.
- Have students give a presentation on the postcard they received, and allow the class to guess who – instead of Virginia Woolf or Mark Twain – really visited the Grand Canyon during the summer.
Students create postcards that reflect a summer happening. They use a pen name to sign it and the rest of the class has to guess who really wrote it.
Themes
Type:
Teaching Strategies
