EMAILS ACTIVITIES As an asynchronous form of communication, emails in literacy is perfect! This is because letter writing is asynchronous as the recipient may not be able to respond for some days or even longer. Real written communication can take place between student and student, teacher and student, class to class or school to school within the school time zone. The asynchronous nature of emails allows it to be used as an effective collaboration tool for literacy learning. Why should you teach this? • It address ACELY1682 where students plan, draft and publish texts demonstrating increasing control over text structures and language features and selecting print, and multimodal elements appropriate to the audience and purpose; • Helps students to become familiar with ICT tools that will enable them to share and exchange information safely; • It compliments and extends their writing skills. It has already been discussed how literacy learning can be taught by use of email in the classroom. The following activities will help you get started on some email projects being guided by the guidelines provided. Imaginative Emails Project (Bennett, 2006) ACTIVITY BRIEF DESCRIPTION 1. Project 1: Write email to a Set up an email account for a key character in the story you will be using. For an immediate response, have a colleague on another character in a story (Bennett, 2006). computer who has been briefed about the character. In small groups, ask students to produce three questions they would like to ask the character. They can identify their favourite question which they will send using email to the character. 2. Project 1.2: Communicate with Before the lesson, explain the activity to a colleague in a parallel children in another class over class and synchronise the timing of the lesson. Explain the activity to the students and demonstrate by corresponding with your colcollaborative writing league taking turns to write a sentence in a story. This is sent off by email and your colleague sends the next sentence. 3. Project 1.3: Improve the skele- Show the students the example story which you and your colleague ton stories started. Ask the students to suggest ways in which the first two sentences might be improved. The students can add or change words or suggest a new intervening sentence. Continue with pairs of sentences until you feel the students have understood the task. 4. Project 1.4: Write a review of a Liaise with your colleague to ensure that all the stories have been shared story completed and dispatched. This may take several lessons. It is a good idea to check the email accounts to ensure all groups have received an email. Discuss the criteria they will use to assess the stories and agree on the way feedback will be provided. 5. Project 1.5: Respond to a reRemind students of the previous activity. Explain the purpose and view of their story structure of this activity. In groups, discuss their response. For example, they may decide to change part of the story. The other students comment about the appropriateness of the group’s response and if necessary, suggest amendments.
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