Let's be penpals...

Writing Prompt:

Think about an early memory of sending or receiving a letter in the mail. If nothing comes to mind right away, start with a list of items you remember (paper, crayons, pencil, envelope, stamp, post office, mail box) or actions you remember (licking a stamp, folding a piece of paper, waiting for the mail) or who you have sent mail or received mail from.

Joy:

[video clip of children receiving letters]

What are other joys of sending and receiving mail?

Wonderings:

Why might we send each other postal mail now? What might we write to each other about/for? What might we ask each other? How might we share? How might we receive? What kinds of things (data) might we share, notice, gather, record?

What might happen if we played inside a layer of collective learning through an exchange via the postal mail?

Invitation:

Let's try and see what happens. Write, draw, ask questions, other...

Be creative. Invent new rules. Be generous. Be vulnerable. Think big. Think small.

Send mail. Receive mail. Respond to mail. Share mail. Re-invent mail.

Keep some kind of record of what you send, what you receive, and your noticings of what you (we) find...

You might want to check out the following...

Dear Data, Giorgi Lupi and Stefanie Posavec

The Letters of Greats: From Ernest Hemingway to Georgia O'Keefe, a Glimpse of Famous Correspondence, Brain Pickings, Maria Popova

NYT column, "Mourning the letters that will no longer be written and remembering the great ones that were"

The Thank You Letter by Jane Cabrera (picture book)

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

To the Letter: A Celebration of the Lost Art of Letter Writing by Simon Garfield

The World Needs More Love Letters (Thank Melanie!)

Dear Photograph

Addresses may be found in the WPWPSIT2020 Google folder.