Plan
- What materials will you need for this adventure?
- Will you share the writing, or have one person on your team be the scribe?
- What will be the subject of your email? Consider writing something related to Scouting, such as booking a climbing gym or registering for a camp.
- What makes for a formal tone when writing an email?
- How much time will you take for this adventure?
Do
- Form teams of four. Each team will write an “email” that will be sent to one of the other teams in an envelope.
- Write your email on paper strips, with each sentence on its own strip of paper. Your email should be ten sentences long and it should have a respectful tone.
- When you are done, write another five sentences on more strips of paper. These sentences will not have anything to do with your intended message, and their tone will be informal.
- Swap emails with the other teams, and try to decode the intended message, putting ten sentences in order and setting aside the five sentences that do not belong.
- Share your efforts with the other teams to find out how your team did.
Review
- What do you know now that you did not know before?
- What is one thing you will try to keep with you when writing emails in the future?
- What purpose does email serve in your life now?
- What purpose will it serve in the future?
Keep it Simple
Practice writing an email to someone else and send it to another member of your Troop or Company. Don’t forget to be polite!
Take it Further
Next time you need to contact someone as part of planning an adventure, volunteer to contact them via email. Put your professional email skills to the test! Don’t forget to CC (carbon copy) at least two Scouters on the email!
