Emails 

COLLABORATE WITH A PARTNER

1. Consider your own thoughts on email writing. What do you think is important to include in writing emails? What should it look like? How would you (or have you) used email in the past?

2. Now, with a partner, compare notes. How does your partner use email compared to you? What does this person say an email should look like compared to you? 

3. Finally, consider what might be expected of you from my point of view (as your teacher). What might be different about an email to your friends versus an email to one of your teachers? Discuss with your partner.

WRITING AN EMAIL

So. Why should we look at writing emails? You're 7th/8th graders, right(?), so you should know how to write an email and communicate electronically. Writing is more than just essays, and this is the perfect example of why you need effective writing and communication skills! Knowing how to write an email could help you in the future by avoiding unnecessary conflict, improving relationships, and allowing for effective communication. In fact, a lot of adults haven't even mastered email writing!

And here's the thing: most of you do not actually know what to include or how to behave when writing emails. Have you ever even been taught? If writing emails is something that's expected of you (I mean, you're students, so you'll probably need to email a teacher at some point in your educational career), why wouldn't I just teach you what you should be doing? 

Well, that's exactly what I'm going to do! This unit will focus on writing emails, and it will focus on using the technology we'll (generally) use in 7th/8th grade and beyond. Let's dive in!

AN EMAIL IS...

An email is electronic mail (also known as a digital letter), and they should be treated similarly to a paper letter. 

Watch the videos and take notes on:

• Email etiquette

• Proper formatting

• Tone

SO YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME? BECAUSE I'M A TEACHER, AND WHAT DO I KNOW...?

Click this link to read an article provided by the University of Nevada on how students should compose emails. This article explains how a university student should behave over email and what emails should look like from a university's perspective. 

But Mrs. Jordan, I don't plan to go to college, so why do I care about knowing how to write an email? 

I'm so glad you asked! Here's a link written by Business News Daily on using email in the professional/career world. It should sound familiar. 

LET'S LOOK AT SOME EXAMPLES

COLLABORATE WITH A PARTNER...

Find a partner. You will do two activities with this person.

Part ONE:

1. Grab the folder that says "Email Etiquette Task."

2. With your partner, complete the worksheet (front and back).

3. Have a teacher check your answers.

Part TWO:

1. Email this person and intentionally get something wrong in the email. They should email you back and tell you what they think is wrong. If they're right, awesome! If they're wrong, let them know, because maybe you accidentally got something else wrong, and you should talk about it together.

2. Find the email you should have gotten. Try to figure out what this person did wrong in their email. Email them back to tell them what you think it is they did wrong. 

MASTERY CHECK: 

• All you have to do for this Mastery Check is turn in the worksheets you completed with your partner.  (Make sure both of your names are on it.)  

• Show Mrs. Jordan your email.

Tech

HOW TO USE GOOGLE SLIDES

We know you use Google Slides for presentations, but there are so many things you can do with it that I wanted to share this tutorial with you. You will use both Google Docs and Google Slides for the rest of your education, and a lot of you will use them throughout your future careers, too. Because both Slides and Docs are part of Google Suite, there are some similar features that they share, but there are a lot of differences, so don't think they're the same app.

Watch the video and take notes on using Google Slides. Then, complete the assessment.

Things to note (you will use a lot of this in class):

• • • Change Theme

    • Formatting the Text

    • Editing Menu (Important!!)

    • Duplicate Slide

    • Adjust Look of Slides.   (and "Apply to Theme")

    • Add New Slide

    • Text Formatting

    • Image Editing

    • Shapes and Lines

    • Share

    • Quick Actions

MASTERY CHECK: 

To show you've mastered Google Docs, you will create a doc and....

• Find the assignment labelled Google Docs Mastery Check in Week 2 of your Google Classroom. You will complete your assignment and turn it in via Google Classroom.

• Write a paragraph (make sure whatever you type is 3 lines or more.)

Did you:

• watch the video and take notes on GoogleDocs

• watch the video and take notes on Google Slides?

• complete the mastery check?