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Looking for ways to engage your students in online literacy learning? Find more interactive tools that help them accomplish a variety of goals-from organizing their thoughts to learning about language.
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Student Interactive
Letter Generator
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| Grades | K – 12 |
| Interactive Type | Writing & Publishing Prose |
| Tech Requirement | |
| URL | http://www.readwritethink.org /files/resources/interactives /letter_generator/ |
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ABOUT THIS INTERACTIVE |
Lessons That Use This Interactive
Related Classroom & Professional Development Resources
The Letter Generator tool is designed to help students learn to identify all the essential parts of a business or friendly letter, and then generate letters by typing information into letter templates. A sample letter is included, and students can learn about the parts of a letter by reading descriptions of each part.
Once students have become familiar with letter formats, they are prompted to write their own letter. Students follow the steps and fill in specific fields in the template (for example, heading, salutation, closing, signature, and so on). They may even add a decorative border and postscript to the friendly letter. The finished letter can be saved, e-mailed, or printed.
This useful tool provides step-by-step instructions for familiarizing users with the necessary elements of written correspondence, and can serve as an excellent practice method for composing and proofreading both formal and informal letters.
For ideas of how to use this tool outside the classroom, see Letter Generator in the Parent & Afterschool Resources section.
Grade K | Lesson Plan | Recurring Lesson
What's in a Name? Teaching Concepts of Letter and Word
In this recurring activity, the process of choosing a helper for the day becomes a literacy activity, with the helper's name as a starting place for reading and writing.
Grades K – 2 | Lesson Plan | Recurring Lesson
Have Journal...Will Travel: Promoting Family Involvement in Literacy
Students build positive memories of literacy activities when they take turns taking home a book bag stuffed with items to encourage literacy interactions with their families.
Grades K – 2 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Launching Family Message Journals
This lesson introduces Family Message Journals—a teacher-tested tool for encouraging family involvement and supporting writing to reflect and to learn.
Grades K – 2 | Lesson Plan | Recurring Lesson
Living the Dream: 100 Acts of Kindness
This lesson provides the "action piece" for any study of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In this project, students participate in Dr. King's dream by doing 100 acts of kindness.
Grades K – 2 | Lesson Plan | Recurring Lesson
Note Writing in the Primary Classroom
This lesson provides a wealth of ideas for using notes in the classroom to promote authentic writing among children.
Grades K – 2 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Mail Time! An Integrated Postcard and Geography Study
Children write and receive postcards from friends and family, and then chart where all those postcards come from on a classroom map.
Grades K – 2 | Lesson Plan | Recurring Lesson
Involving Students and Families in Ongoing Reflection and Assessment
Students begin by writing a sentence or two each week and progress to daily reflections and records of their school activity. Families respond to these student reflections, which become the basis for discussion among family, teacher, and students.
Grades 3 – 5 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Vocabulary Solutions: A Mixture of Science, Conversation, and Writing
In this lesson, students conduct a science experiment and later discuss the events of the lab during shared writing. Students explain the procedure in their own words and then revise to include content specific vocabulary. Finally, students reflect on new words added to their writing using the Trading Card Creator interactive.
Grades 9 – 12 | Lesson Plan | Unit
Using published writers' texts and students' own writing, this unit explores emotions that are associated with the artful and deliberate use of commas, semicolons, colons, and exclamation points (end-stop marks of punctuation).
Grades 6 – 8 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Greetings from the Biomes of the World
To share their research on biomes, students use iPads to create postcards from all over the world.
Grades K – 8 | Student Interactive | Writing & Publishing Prose
The Postcard Creator helps students learn to identify all the typical parts of a postcard, and then generate their own postcard messages by typing information into letter templates. After printing their texts, students can illustrate the front of their postcards in a variety of ways, including drawing, collage, and stickers.
Grades 9 – 12 | Calendar Activity | December 10
Poet Emily Dickinson was born in 1830.
Students discuss Dickinson's poem "This Is My Letter To The World" and use it to focus on how audience affects voice.
Grades 1 – 6 | Calendar Activity | January 17
Today is Benjamin Franklin's birthday.
Students discuss Benjamin Franklin's contributions to postal history, investigate the roles of the Postmaster General, and write letters to their classmates using the Letter Generator.
Grades 1 – 12 | Calendar Activity | July 7
Write letters that make things happen!
In a small group or as individuals, students write letters related to a unit of study or particular topic they have studied.
Grades 3 – 12 | Calendar Activity | January 24
Gold was discovered in California in 1848.
Students read letters from the Gold Rush and follow up by writing an imaginary letter to a family member about their experience using the Letter Generator.
Grades K – 8 | Calendar Activity | September 8
Jon Scieszka was born in 1954.
Students review Scieszka's tips for encouraging young people to read and then create their own, sharing ideas with adults in their community through a letter.
Grades K – 12 | Strategy Guide
This strategy guide explains how to use shared writing to teach students effective strategies that will improve their own independent writing ability.
Grades 3 – 5 | Activity & Project
Children learn how to make a convincing argument—an important skill in school and in life.
Grades 6 – 8 | Activity & Project
Write Letters to Friends and Family
Invite young adults to write letters to classmates, postcards from travels, and e-mails to family and friends.
Grades 3 – 8 | Game & Tool
The Letter Generator shows children the key parts of a letter and lets them practice writing either a friendly or business letter.
