Write a Friendly Letter… …to your future self!

WRITE A LETTER TO YOUR FUTURE SELF AND RECEIVE IT

AS A HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR IN JUNE OF 2016!

For this writing activity, you’ll be writing a friendly letter that will be mailed to you six years from now. This time capsule of a letter will follow the format as outlined in class by Mr. Ball. Generally speaking, it will contain a section filled with memories from your year in sixth grade, and another section that will contain your specific predictions or thoughts about your future. Do you plan on going to college? Where? What do you want to be when you grow up? Why? Where do you want to live? Who will your friends be in high school? What will life in 2016 be like? Will there still be US troops fighting around the world? What new inventions will change life in America? Who will win the 2016 Super Bowl?

Close your eyes. Imagine the scene…the year is 2016, and the month is June: you’re 17 or 18 years old, a high school senior, and you’re looking forward to summer vacation. The mail arrives one beautiful mid-June afternoon. Mixed in with your parents’ bills and your college acceptance letters is an odd looking, faded envelope with strangely familiar handwriting. Why…it’s a letter from 2010, and…it’s from you!

June, 2016: you’ll be graduating from high school. It will be such an exciting time for you – a time of immense possibilities. A time for looking forward, and a time for looking back, too. Hopefully, by June of 2016, you’ll have figured out some answers to the many questions that come along with growing up and graduating from high school: What will you do after high school? Will you be entering the working world? Going on to college? Which college will you choose? Will you still live with your parents or move out? Will you still be wearing Sillybanz? Yes, these are important questions…and there is no time like the present to begin thinking about your answers to them. During class time today, you’ll be thinking about your future and making some specific predictions about the brave new world you’ll face in 2016. These predictions will comprise the second half of your friendly letter.

The first half of your letter will provide a snapshot of you in the school year 2009-2010. Think of this part as a written time capsule, filled with memories you don’t want to forget. Use your t-shirt to remind yourself of all that has happened this year. As you read the letter six years from now, you’ll catch a glimpse of your past before you go on to your future.

…the Big Question: How will you get your letter in the year 2016?

By the power vested in me by Justin Bieber, I solemnly swear to do everything in my power to mail your letter to you in June of 2016. In the event of my untimely demise, Mrs. Ball has been duly instructed in the mailing protocol and procedures.

Signed,

Mr. Ball

We’ll work on brainstorming some ideas in class today. First drafts are due on Monday - we will revise, edit, and write up final copies that day. Have fun thinking about your future and remembering your past!

IMPORTANT***Please bring in a self-addressed business letter envelope with a 44 cent stamp on it on Monday.***

(sample friendly letter)

Dear Future Binky,

Greetings from the year 2010! Bet you’re surprised to receive this letter, huh? Well, I guess congratulations are in order. Congratulations on graduating from high school! I thought you’d never do it. Are you wondering what life back in sixth grade was like…? Find it hard to remember life at Farnsworth Middle School…? Before you head out to your future, let me remind you of some of the funny, amazing, and normal everyday things that happened in sixth grade.

I’ll never forget my traumatic first day on the Ball/Hyland Team. I was late to school and I had to walk in the door about ten minutes after everyone else did. Right when I went to take my seat, I pulled the chair out and when the legs dragged against the floor, it sounded like somebody farted. Everyone laughed and thought it was me. Then, Mr. Ball mispronounced my name as “Pinky Pa-flugman” and everyone laughed even harder. Doesn’t everyone know the P in Pflugman is silent?

I have to say, though, that from that day on, everything got better, just like Mrs. Hyland said it would. I joined the underwater basket weaving club and got voted to be president! I was in the MASK play that winter and I got the lead role. Mrs. Hyland cracked us all up doing her Paycheck Dance every other Friday when she got paid. She always danced to “Walking on Sunshine” and all of us students would yell out, “Whoa-oh!” really loud during the chorus. But above all, I have to say that my favorite memories from sixth had to be all of the times that Mr. Ball would sing in class. Sometimes I would actually tear up because he was so bad. And don’t forget about all of those Final Fridays when we could have fun and have lunch with our parents. We even beat the parents in “Are You Smarter Than a Sixth Grader?” 27 to 23!

This letter is also supposed to be about looking forward to my future, not just looking back on sixth grade. When I grow up, I want to be an astronaut and fly on the space shuttle, or whatever else NASA is using for air travel. I love science and always loved Mrs. Hyland’s science classes with labs, Bill Nye videos, and cool projects. The only thing I would change about sixth grade science is that I wish we had more homework.

I want to go to Western Washington University after high school. I love living at home in Guilderland, but I can’t wait to move away from home and branch out on my own. “If it’s to be, it’s up to me,” like Mr. Ball always said. I hear WWU has an awesome program for budding astronauts. In high school, I plan to take calculus, chemistry and physics. I want to do really well in all those courses because you need them to get into colleges and universities that offer degrees in space science. Remember…good, better, best, never let it rest…

I predict that the New York Giants will win the Super Bowl in 2016, and that the NY Yankees will win the World Series that year, too. I think that the Seattle Mariners (Mr. Ball’s favorite team) will be the team that the Yankees beat to get to the World Series.

I hope I am still friends with Freddie, Steve, Manuel, Ezekiel, and Choo Choo Coleman in high school. I think Choo Choo might even want to go to space school with me! I will never forget the time Freddie ate 17 chocolate chip cookies in lunch. I’ll bet he can eat 37 cookies at once by the time we get to be seniors.

Oh well, gotta go. See you later...six years later!

Your Former Self,

Binky

P.S. Do you still have your Big Sixth Grade T-Shirt of Knowledge?

Friendly Letter Format

1 Heading – The heading includes your address and the date. It is written in the upper right-hand corner.

2 Salutation – The salutation is a way of saying hello to the person you are writing to. It usually begins with the word Dear and is followed by the person’s name. Place a comma after the person’s name. The salutation is written on the left side margin.

3 Body – The body of the letter contains the thoughts and ideas you want to share. Make sure that you indent your paragraphs. Do not skip lines between paragraphs.

4 Closing – The closing is a way of saying good-bye. Line up your closing with your heading. Capitalize only the first word and follow the closing with a comma. Examples may include:

Love, Sincerely, Your friend, Respectfully,

5 Signature – The signature is your name. Write it beneath the closing. Your first name is usually enough, unless the person you are writing to doesn’t know you very well.

6 P.S. – A postscript is an afterthought that you write at the end of the letter. The P.S. stands for the Latin words post (meaning “after”) and script (meaning “write”).

- Write Source 2000