I don’t know why it hadn’t hit me before this year; many of our students do not know how to email. I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, how many one line emails with little capitalization, no greeting or ending, and usually little specificity must one sit through before they get the message. And yet, it took me 8 years to realize that most students use email as a way to text and that teachers everywhere must be shaking their heads just like we have.
So this year, on the day back after spring break, we took 20 minutes to learn how to email better. It was so simple; students logged into their own email accounts and pulled up sent emails to teachers. A few were willing to share and I then shared a few myself that I had received. Some students laughed, others winced, but right away they started to see how their message could be read. How their intent could be misread and how in their endeavor to be efficient had forgotten what it meant to communicate well.
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cross posted at http://pernillesripp.com/
Mass consumer of incredible books, Pernille Ripp helps students discover their superpower as a middle school teacher in Oregon, Wisconsin. She opens up her educational practices and beliefs to the world on her blog www.pernillesripp.com and is also the creator of the Global Read Aloud Project, a global literacy initiative that since 2010 has connected more than 1,00,000 students. Her book Passionate Learners - How to Engage and Empower Your Students is helping teachers change the way students feel about school. Her other book Empowered Schools, Empowered Students is meant to give others the courage to change. Follow her on Twitter @pernilleripp.
