Note to self: Never underestimate the power of FUN in writing workshop.

It started as a fairly typical unit of study. I knew that according to the academic content standards, my fourth graders needed to have experience with letter writing. I went to Katie Wood Ray's book Study Driven: A Framework for Planning Units of Study in the Writing Workshop to remind me of the steps in her inquiry framework:

Gathering Texts
Setting the Stage
Immersion
Close Study
Writing Under the Influence

I gathered a few examples of letters and put them in plastic page protectors:

• a letter of complaint I wrote to LL Bean a few years back; a junk mail letter asking me to buy auto insurance;
• a copy of a short story that we had recently read that featured notes exchanged between a little boy and the tooth fairy;
• a newspaper article about a letter-writing campaign from parents to the toy industry asking them to cut back on their marketing aimed at children;
• a variety of short letters to the editor on topics the 10 year-olds could understand; and
• a piece of the school's letterhead to explain the concept of letterhead.

On the first day of the study, we passed these examples around and talked about the reasons why people write letters, the difference between a business and a friendly letter, and some of the different parts of letters. I had started a chart to capture their ideas, and as soon as we started naming the parts of a letter, Niall went to the bookshelf and came back with the book he'd just finished: Stink and the Incredible Super-Galactic Jawbreaker by Megan McDonald. He turned right to the page that shows the letter Stink wrote to the jawbreaker company. This letter has a letterhead, and most of the parts of the letter are labeled: the greeting, the closing and the postscript. Needless to say, I made a copy of that page and we added it to our text set. It was also a great segue into my invitation that they bring in letters from home (with parent permission, of course). I sent a quick email to the parents letting them know about my invitation/request.

Letters from Home

The next day, we had LOTS of letters to look at, and I got a unique glimpse into my students' literate lives: one child brought a big plastic bag full of every letter or card she had ever received. She chose a thank-you note from her ESL teacher and a birthday letter written in Japanese as the two she would share with us for our study. Another child brought the letter from the editor of Highlights that is found at the beginning of every issue - here was a child with her own magazine subscription. One child brought in a reserve notice postcard from the public library, confirming what I knew about her family being high-end library users. There was a page of letters to the editor from American Nurse Today magazine. This came from a home where obviously a parent reads professional material. And finally, among others, there was a letter from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services about an upcoming Naturalization Ceremony. What a great conversation that opened up!

Finally, I pulled the following books from my classroom library and we talked about the work the letters do in each of these books:

Dear Peter Rabbit by Alma Flor Ada
Yours Truly, Goldilocks by Alama Flor Ada
With Love, Little Red Hen by Alma Flor Ada
Help Me, Mr. Mutt!: Expert Answers for Dogs with People Problems by Janet Stevens
Ask Dr. K. Fisher About Creepy-Crawlies by Claire Llewellyn
Dear Mrs Larue: Letters From Obedience School by Mark Teague
Love, Ruby Lavender by Deborah Wiles
Stringbean's Trip to the Shining Sea by Vera Williams

The last resource for letter writing that I introduced was Writer's Express: A Handbook for Young Writers, Thinkers & Learners (by Dave Kemper, Ruth Nathan, Patrick Sebranek, illus by Chris Krenzke. Write Source /Houghton Mifflin, 1995). We found the information about and the examples of both friendly and business letters, and then talked about how to use those examples to make sure their letters were correct.

I finally gave them their assignment - write one business letter and one friendly letter. They were free to decide who was writing each letter and to whom. No, they didn't have to be real letters - they just had to use the real formats of business or friendly letters.

Digging In and Enjoying the Assignment

Here's when the fun really started. After a short silent brainstorming session, students shared some of their ideas: a business letter of complaint from a deer to a hunter, and another from a polar bear to all the humans about global warming. A business letter of request from a dog to a cat, requesting cats stay away from dogs so dogs would not be tempted to chase them. A friendly letter to the video game character Mario, and another - a letter of apology - from the cartoon character Jerry to his archenemy Tom.

Along with all the playful imaginary letters that were written, there were playful real letters that were written and sent, like the letter that Scaredy Squirrel wrote to Melanie Watt asking her to write a book about all the brave things he's done. And the letter that Raymond wrote to his mother, "I have a request for a RAISE! It's business, you know? I work. You pay. Here's the deal..." Raymond goes on to list, in a table, the jobs he does, how often he does them, how much money he wants to be paid for each job, and the reason why he's asking that amount. And we can't forget the letter that Mr. Pterodactyl wrote to Bat complimenting him on how well he's adapted: "I think echolocation is awesome. If only I knew how to do it. The way you can sense butterflies coming is genius."

There were lots of touching letters, too - sent to moms, dads, brothers, bus drivers, and soccer coaches. There was a letter to the local zoo complimenting them on their holiday lights event, and a letter to the PTO president requesting more tetherballs on the playground.

Because the level of fun was so high as they wrote their letters, I was able to keep the level of rigor high, too. I sent them back to the Writers Express examples over and over again to get their formatting and punctuation just right. They checked and double-checked their spelling, and if their final copy was in handwriting, they wrote and rewrote to make it neat. All without complaining, because writing the letters was such fun.

It bears repeating: Never underestimate the power of FUN in writing workshop.