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Writing letters this month? Letter writers around the globe have joined the Letter Writers Alliance, a place to meet new letter writing friends. Kathy Zadrozny and Donovan Beeson founded the group in 2007 to keep the art of letter writing alive.
Check it out: “With a combination of both online presence and in person gatherings we strive to give people the tools to maintain the art of letter writing. With over 2,000 members worldwide, the member site is the biggest part of the Alliance. We offer free printable downloads, exclusive member products, and vintage postal items.”
Follow this link to get a $3 membership. With the membership, you can join the group’s pen pal swap, a way to make new friends at the mailbox. This GalleyCat editor joined last week, receiving the letter posted above in the mail.
continued…
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
The act of letter writing has inspired countless songs.
For your letter writing inspiration, we’ve created a special Spotify mix with an hour of inspiring music–plenty of time to write some letters this weekend. Follow this link to listen to the whole Spotify playlist.
Writers around the world are taking the Month of Letters Challenge this month. To keep the letter-writers in the audience motivated in February, we are posting letter writing resources, tools and inspiration.
continued…
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
The act of letter writing has inspired countless songs.
For your letter writing inspiration, we’ve created a special Spotify mix with an hour of inspiring music–plenty of time to write some letters this weekend. Follow this link to listen to the whole Spotify playlist.
Writers around the world are taking the Month of Letters Challenge this month. To keep the letter-writers in the audience motivated in February, we are posting letter writing resources, tools and inspiration.
continued…
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Can writing letters change your life? Over at the Save Snail Mail blog, a writer named Dana explained how her mail-focused blog improved different aspects of her writing life.
Check it out: “When I started this blog only a year ago, I don’t think I had any idea that I could truly transform my mailbox experience so drastically … with a lot of help from my fellow letter writers and mail artists, of course! What a lovely rebirth I’ve experienced–writing letters to people who write back, meeting new people from varied backgrounds, digging more deeply into my creative talents and coming up with some great art I didn’t know I had in me.”
Writers around the world are taking the Month of Letters Challenge in February. To keep the letter-writers in the audience inspired, we are posting letter writing resources, tools and inspiration.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
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on 12/7/2011
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Margo Dill's Read These Books and Use Them!
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If you haven’t visited my picture book giveaway yet for Chickens on the GO!, please do so now. You don’t want to miss this SUPER CUTE picture book. Click here.
Now on to this FUNNY, FUNNY picture book that dog owners EVERYWHERE have to check out–this is another one of those picture books that are perfect for any age reader.
*Picture book, preschooler through third grader, fantasy–since the dogs and cats are writing letters 
*Loveable dog and not-so-loveable cat as main characters
*Rating: If you love Dear Abby or any of the self-help talk shows, you will love Mr. Mutt. He solves all the dogs’ dilemmas. See if you recognize any of these going on in your home with your poor, mistreated dogs. . . (I love this book!)
Short, short summary:
Mr. Mutt accepts letters from all his dog fans, and they write him with the most common dog dilemmas of the day. For example, there’s “Famished in Florida” whose people have put him on a diet! He is so hungry his stomach is growling louder than he growls, and he also complains that the fat cat gets fancy food from a tiny can, while he gets tasteless gravel from a giant sack! Mr. Mutt sympathizes with Famished and explains to him where he can get some food–on the counter tops, the trash can, the baby’s high chair (MY DOG HAS LEARNED THAT FOR SURE!), and to top off the meal–a drink from the toilet. Then Mr. Mutt reminds Famished he is a top dog and that cats are spoiled rotten. Of course, Mr. Mutt has a cat to deal with himself, the Queen, and she writes her own opinions down.
Help Me, Mr. Mutt continues in this fashion with dogs writing letters full of problems to Mr. Mutt, and he answers them back with the best dog advice, and The Queen cat also gives her two cents. It is so cute and funny, and I really think adults will get a huge kick out of it, too.
So, what do I do with this book?
1. Kids will love writing a letter to Mr. Mutt–especially if Mr. Mutt can answer them back! They can either write as a dog OR write as a human with a pet question. Kids would enjoy getting a letter back from The Queen, too. One huge classroom letter would do.
2. The end of the book is told in mostly illustrations and “newspaper” clippings. The rest of the book is told in letter form with help from the illustrations. This is a form of organization, one of the 6 + 1 traits of writing. What do kids think about the organization? Can they tell the end of the story, even though it is not traditionally told with words? Also discuss with students how picture books have much of the story in illustrations, too, and how it is important to pay attention to both the words and pictures in a picture book. (Another part of the organization is there is an overall problem–the cat/dog dilemma, and then several little problems with the individual letters.)
3. If you have to teach parts of a letter or letter writing, what a great book to do it with. It’s much more fun to learn about letter writing from a humorous picture book like Help Me, Mr. Mutt than it is from a Language Arts textbook.
For the second year, the TA's have been invited to present at the Illinois Reading Council. There were three of us this time; April, Esther and myself, excited about getting the return gig. ("They liked us. THey really liked us!")
Then we got our schedules and realized we were vying with some pretty big names to get an audience. Just off the top of my head; M.T. Anderson (Ironically, the Award Winning Writer from my previous blog!), last year's Newbery winner Rebecca Stead, Jane Yolen, T.A. Barron, Marc Brown, Sara Pennypacker, Robert Burleigh, Mordecai Gerstein and Vaunda Nelson. Yikes! What a line up! I had a flashback to my very first book conference (at a location I will not disclose) where I discovered I was on at the same time as Garrison Keillor!
Given all the literary superstars, the TA's were delighted to have a full house (in a small room!) for our talk on modeling creative writing with your students in a school day that is jam packed with everything but creative writing. Or as one of my daughter's teachers told me,"Creative writing is not on the state tests."
For those of you who were not there, I will be brief in saying that our writing exercise was to write a thank you letter to someone who had influenced your life in some way. (When I heard the phrase "thank you note" I immediately thought of the ones I wrote as a child ---Dear Meemaw, Thanks for the pajamas. They fit. XXXOOO Mary Ann.) And that little gem was an actual example in my third grade grammar book!
Our group did not disappoint. There were letters to parents, former teachers, President Carter, and even one to the Teaching Authors for our program! We asked only for volunteer readers, and it was a rare reader who did not let their emotions overcome them at some point. Now that is good writing, if you can make yourself cry. However, I would not stress having students share with the class. Fourth grade teachers sharing is a lot different from fourth graders sharing (giggling) with the class.
I had to leave before all the Superstars spoke, although I was delighted to be seated next to my former
mentor, M. T. Anderson, during the book signing session. Perhaps one of the other TA's will fill you in on the Big Dinner Speeches.
Here we are, the TA's hard at work! We
were having a planning session...and supper at Augie's.
Esther, Mary Ann and Marie (our mentor/advisor) with April in back.
Same old gang, plus one of our intrepid volunteers in our workshop.
Notice that even though it was St. Patrick's Day, none of us are wearing green!
Posted by Mary Ann Rodman
I was recently talking with a friend whose daughter was spending the summer at sleep away camp. I was curious about how she was going to communicate with her since e-mail and texting are so prevalent. She told me her daughter wasn’t allowed to bring a smart phone and that the computer lab wasn’t open [...]
Check out the “Share a Story, Shape a Future” Blog Literacy Tour. This post relates to today’s theme, “Literacy My Way/Literacy Your Way,” of the Tour, which is hosted by Susan Stephenson at The Book Chook.
I loved to write as a child, but never had someone hand me a book and say, “You write a [...]
I am consistently moved by meaningful letters. When I write thank you notes, I am sure to take time with them so the recipient can feel my genuine gratitude. However, when I write other notes, specifically condolence notes, I find it more challenging. (Let me be honest, I’ve even looked for mentor letters to help [...]
My Hope and Dream Letter
Originally uploaded by teachergal
I can hardly believe there’s only five school days left even though I’ve been going through my students’ end of the year reflection letters, and responding to each of them in writing, this past week. It takes awhile to do it well. Therefore, this is the [...]
My colleague and next-door-classroom-neighbor Leanna and I were eating and grading writer’s notebooks together at lunchtime today. I got to the second notebook in my stack and said, “She’s gotta be kidding me!”
“What?” Leana asked.
“She wrote me,” I stopped feeling something between annoyance and anger, “letters.”
I have this thing about writer’s notebooks not being about [...]
Here’s what I’m giving my students to work on over the course of three days this week:
Guide to End of the Year Letters to Ms. S.
NOTE: Your paragraphs do not need to follow this exact structure! It’s merely a guideline to help you if you’re stuck.
• Paragraph 1: What is your greatest accomplishment since March 2009? [...]
I’ve noticed that a post I wrote last June, about letters I have my students write to me at the end of each school year, has been getting a lot of clicks lately.
Since it seems like a lot of people are looking for ideas with how to end the school year with the same fanfare [...]
Long-time Ypulse readers know I am one of those crazy summer camp fanatics. Started sleep-away camp at 7, was a C.I.T. at 13, junior counselor at 14 and worked at two other overnight camps while in college. So you could say I'm a camp purist [see my... Read the rest of this post
I’ve hesitated writing this post for a few days. For one thing, I didn’t want this post to seem like I was tooting my own horn. Second, I didn’t want my classroom to seem like it’s without flaws either.
Recently, I’ve had some visitors in my classroom (one of whom is a TWT Reader and [...]
Head over to the Choice Literacy Website to read an article Mary Lee Hahn wrote entitled “The Joy of Letter Writing: An Integrated Unit for Intermediate Students.” It’ll surely inspire you to get going with letter writing, if you haven’t already.
Posted in letter writing 
An historic Inauguration Day is rapidly approaching. Are you reading a book about the transfer of power or about our President-Elect? Will you be watching the Inauguration live with your class and having them write about it in their notebooks? Not sure? Check out an article I wrote about ways to celebrate Black History Month, [...]
Dropping a Stamped Persuasive Letter Into the Outgoing Mail Basket IS a Form of Publishing!
Originally uploaded by teachergal
Eleven of my kids showed up to school on this very icy Monday. 10:11 of them completed their persuasive letters when they had off on the snow day. (WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Therefore, all of them were able [...]
Tuesday’s News & Announcements Chart
Originally uploaded by teachergal
As you know, Sunday’s are for chart-making in my home. I just finished creating this week’s News & Announcements Charts (for Morning Meeting) as well as a few strategy charts for Writing Workshop. Feels good to be finished!
For the past couple of years, I’ve created letterhead, [...]
Every Wednesday evening my students read the cover story in Time for Kids and then complete one of the worksheets. It’s not exactly how I’d like to do current events, but sometimes it’s all that’s possible in a given-week. Last night’s assignment was to read pages 4 and 5 of the present issue [...]
Many teachers have the kids write letters to their future selves at the start of the academic year (to be opened in June). I’ve never been one of those teachers, but I’m starting to think I need to be… at least where this historic election is concerned.
Here’s what I’m thinking (while trying to [...]
Little Note
Originally uploaded by teachergal
I recently purchased a bunch of small note cards from Christina Hill, The Hollister 25, and Piping Hot Papers for the purpose of writing little notes to my students when I catch them doing something good, want to give them a written pep talk, of when I wish to tell them [...]
I’m a big advocate of letter writing. It is, perhaps, my favorite genre. There’s something about holding a personalized letter in one’s hand that feels special.
A few years ago, Instructor published a list of classroom jobs that were a bit out-of-the-box. This year marks the third year I’ve been using more sophisticated [...]
A few days ago I received two e-mails from one of my former fifth graders that I hadn’t seen since the final day of school in June 2007. He’s now in seventh grade and wanted to get back in-touch. Seeing as all of my students have my personal e-mail address, this was pretty [...]
This is the final post of the Big Picture Series. (Ruth stated hers was the last, but after I received some mail from her today, I decided we needed to have just one more post in this Series.)
I returned home from running errands about 30 minutes ago and found a thick, manila envelope in [...]
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Wow! Sounds like a wonderful event. and thanks for the writing tip. Was my friend Nancy Stewart also presenting? Or am I thinking of a different event? Loved the pix