Postcards: A Versatile Tool for Making Connections
Teachers will need a collection of blank 3” x 5” cards
Blank Postcards Themed on Books
At the most basic level, students can create a series of blank postcards thened on one or more books. For each card, the student selects an important location or object for the picture side, and on the reverse (top left of the card), writes a one-sentence descriptive blurb about the importance or relevance of the image, leaving blank the usual spots for message and address. Students can even design appropriate stamps if desired.
Eg – To Kill A Mockingbird – students might draw pictures of the Radley place, the tree outide the Radley place, the courthouse, and the balcony inside the courthouse. The stamp might be an illustration of a mockingbird. Students could also research details such as postage rates during the Great Depression.
Biographical Influences on a Writer – students might create postcards as if for display in the writer’s hometown. They would need to identify the important places in the writer’s life, find images and write a brief description for each image.
Shakespeare – students could look for illustrations of the exterior and interior of the Globe Theatre, portraits of Shakespeare, photos of Shakespeare’s birthplace and even a map of Stratford-on-Avon noting important sites. (Google Images makes all of these pictures easily available).
Journey-Based Postcards
Many literary works are based on journeys. Students can create postcards that the traveller might send to someone left behind. Students could take on the role of a character and send a message telling what they have learned or what they miss. For journey-based postcards, students are expected to find or create an appropriate image while considering the character and the character’s message.
Eg – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Huck could send Tom Sawyer a postcard with a picture of the river, telling him about his friendship with Buck Grangerford.
Postcards Between Books/Between Authors
Have students write a postcard from a character in one work of fiction to a character in a different work. This activity asks students to consider and compare themes, events and character attributes and find connections.
Eg – Brave New World and The Handmaid’s Tale – Lenina (BNW) could send a postcard from the Savage Reservation to Offred/June (THT) commiserating on their roles as sex objects.
Students could also write postcards between two writers they are studying who were contemporaries. Eg – William Shakespeare to Francis Bacon; F. Scott Fitzgerald to Ernest Hemingway; Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning. George Eliot ( Mary Anne Evans) could send postcards to Ralph Waldo Emerson (who visited her brother while she served as his housekeeper).
J. D. Salinger and Ernest Hemingway were real-life correspondents students could emulate. These exchanges would require students to examine the writing style of the authors. They would also need to research the time period and both writers’ biographies to get a sense of what these people would have to say to one another and what their tone would be.
Students could also cross time periods, writing postcards from a writer of one era to a writer of a different time period. Eg – one writer could send a thank-you card to another writer who influenced his/her style. To write these messages, students would be making connections between authors and their styles, looking for elements they would have in common. Eg – Alice Walker to Zora Neale Hurston; Kurt Vonnegut Jr. to Mark Twain.
These assignments require creativity, research and analysis. They allow students to look at a piece of literature, an author, or a writing style from a different angle. because postcard messages are short, they are less intimidating than other assignments might be, yet still require research and inquiry. They also need to be pithy, requiring students to get to the essence of what they want to say.
Postcards should be displayed in the classroom.
Adapted from Classroom Notes Plus (NCTE), 2009