Email

What:

Endlessly open to reinvention, email is vastly underutilised as a story tool! Email stories (refer to the Stories page for wonderful examples) are a very engaging, active story style.

Email narratives have often been used where a reader receives copies of emails 'accidentally' sent to them of exchanges between characters in a narrative. Covering many varied genres, these stories can be very absorbing.

Ease of use: The learning curve should be small for most students.

Writing application:

Students are paired with a partner. It is suggested each student map out a story involving two people that unfolds through an exchange of email (you might wish to draft the story in a storyboard instead).

Students then write a piece of the story each, taking the role of one of the characters and emailing each other with their correspondence until the story is complete. For example, a breakup may take place between a couple that reveals itself over exchanged emails.

Discussion points:

• Voice in narrative - examine the differences in voice of the two characters in one of the examples you produce.
• A refreshing way of exploring themes in writing.
• A good way to explore informal styles of writing vs more formal texts.

Writing application:

Group stories can take many forms, but using email to build a story amongst a group can be an effective way of exploring story structure.

It can also be a useful way of picking apart character voice and consistency - when four people are writing the same story in pieces, it becomes crucial that the character profile and voice are maintained throughout.

Have students all take a role in the story, imagining where they are (at work, at school, at home late at night etc), who they are, what they want and need.

Suited: Early secondary school onward should be able to comfortably engage with this task.

Teaching with an existing text:

While a forum may seem to be a better online space for discussing an existing text, email allows for more contemplation. One application is to ask students to exchange a minimum of 6 emails related to a discussion point in the text. You might stipulate 2 users or try four or more exchanging emails in a 'round'. That is, the first sends an email to the second, it gets forwarded to the third, then the fourth - an alternate point being made as the email is forwarded to each new recipient. The final email is then sent to a central point for discussion with the class.

Teaching with an existing text:

Ask students to rewrite a discussion between characters in their novel as an email transcript using emoticons and the informal style that is often represented in email exchanges. You may wish to explore character traits, and dialogue in the novel first, finding commong phrases used etc. This can be revealing for both character and structure - and is a fun way of revealing themes explored in the book.