I’m a few weeks away from the end of this school year and I’m pushing through to the end, as I presume you are too.
It’s report cards and wrap-up and clean-up and everything else. However, a saving grace for me this year was the emails that I scheduled for tough times at the end of the last school year. Letters to my future self – written by me, to me!
Yes, you read that; I scheduled emails to myself!
A tweak on an end-of-year activity that I do with my students each year. (You can check out that ready-made lesson here.)
When my students wrote their letters last year across several periods of classes, I wrote ones to myself. I will do the same thing over the next bit too. I will use futureme.org to schedule those emails to myself too. (The other option is to use my Gmail-based school email to schedule emails for the future.) Then I will forget what day and time I set and be pleasantly surprised when one appears seemingly out of the blue!
So what do I say in those emails? Well, I’m funny and a good storyteller so there’s always that as a pick-me-up! But more often it’s an email that makes sure I remember the struggle, my resilience or not (instead sharing my I-just-got-through-it-but-here-we-are-on-the-other-side story), and, of course, the joy that was found in the year.
I write about student breakthroughs or no breakthroughs but still making it through.
I write about that really great lesson that was a hit.
I write all kinds of things! I know that November and February are hard so I schedule emails that recap some of the highlights and/or what I want to remember to keep me going at those particular times.
I also use the future-me letters as part of my lesson planning.
In the past I taught A Raisin in the Sun in early January to grade 9s so I set an email to myself for things I want to remember for the unit such as a great idea or what really worked or a link to resources that I definitely want to use again or as a new component.
Sure I can write those as notes somewhere in a unit plan but in the shuffle it’s not always likely I’ll see it in time to add it in and then I’ll kick myself when I find the note or the long-buried email from my inbox at the end of February after the unit wraps. Instead, the email that pops up a few days before I start the unit is even more helpful in its timeliness and reminder of past-me!
So here’s a question for you… what would you include in the letter to your future self?
Looking for end of year activities to keep your students engaged? Check out this set of three activities:
- A music playlist reflection
- Letter to your future self scaffolded activity
- Personal and academic timelines with reflection
