Original Instructional Plan

The Future Letter

Instructional Plan: The Future Letter

Level: English as a Foreign Language (EFL); College/University; General Requirements: About Publishing "Teaching Requirements of College English Courses" by General Office of Ministry of Education of China
Written Expression: Be able to accomplish general writing tasks, common practical writings, describe personal experiences, impressions, feelings and events, complete short essays of general topics with more than 120 words in half an hour. Have complete contents, clear main ideas, appropriate word usages, coherent sentences. Master basic writing skills.

Performance Objectives:
Content Objective 1. To write a future letter to a friend, a family member, a stranger or self
Language Objective 2. To learn the form of letter writing
Learning-Strategy Objective 3. To use graphic organizer to extend thinking

Warm-Up: Instructor says, “What do you wish to tell but you have no chance or courage to tell? An apology? A penitence? A secret love? Or an appreciation? Whatever you wish, now you have a good chance to release yourself and tell anything hidden in your heart. Today you will write a future letter to your friends, your family, yourself or any strangers you want to tell, keep the letter by yourself and post it after one year.”

Task Chain 1: Learn the Form of Letter Writing
1. Students choose their favorite color pencils, letter papers and envelopes given by instructor.
2. Instructor lectures how to write a letter by using heading, greeting or salutation, body, closing and signature and how to write an envelope.
3. Students follow instructor’s lecture to write envelopes and heading, greeting or salutation of letters.

Task Chain 2: Use Graphic Organizer to Extend Thinking
1. Instructor illustrates elements of graphic organizers and briefly lectures some basic graphic organizers to extend thinking in letter writing, such as mind maps, brainstorming webs and spider maps.
2. Students create their own graphic organizers according to their learning styles by following elements of graphic organizers to extend thinking on Work Sheet 1.

Task Chain 3: Write a Future Letter
1. Students use graphic organizers they create to begin to write future letters.
2. After finishing writing, students put letters into envelopes, keep future letter by themselves and post letters after one year.

Final Assessment: Students write letters to instructor for feedback to evaluate their letter writing, which include detailed answers to open-ended questions, “Did you express yourself clearly? Do you think the receiver will understand what you wrote? Did you feel released after writing this letter? Did it help you? Do you like writing letters? Describe this experience of writing a future letter.”