I was sorting through some old photos and journal entries, and going through old drafts that never got posted to the blog, and there's plenty of things that take me way back to my days as a JET. (Sometimes I think maybe I ought to take all that content a little further than a blog, given the vast amount of stuff I wrote at the time, and publish it as a Japan-memoir of sorts, heh.)
One of the things I brought home with me when I left Japan was a box of letters that resulted from the most entertaining and successful project I ever did with my students. I wish I could remember where I came up with the idea, but I opened it with line above, a little nod to The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi, which was super popular at the time - plenty of my students would pull out the Haruhi dance for a little fun. The project was called "A Lie in a Letter," and it was a creativity lesson I assigned to the ninensei, or second graders. (This would be the Grade 11 equivalent in Canada.)
The basis of the lesson was that they had to write an "outrageous" story about themselves in the form of a letter to me, and I read some pretty incredible stories as I was helping students check their spelling and grammar. I had brought coloured paper, markers, stickers and envelopes, and set them loose for an entire 50-minute period to work on their outrageous letters. The principal, vice-principal and two Board of Education members actually came in during one of my classes that week and watched the first ten minutes of the lesson...stressful for both me and the students, but it went all right! They were quick to grasp new things, so they managed to get started without a hitch.
The first time I did this lesson was also the first time I ever had to evict students from my classroom ten minutes after class ended because they were entirely too wrapped up in what they were doing. It was really satisfying to know that they were so invested in the project that they wanted to stick around and finish it during the lunch hour.
That first year, I took the whole pile of letters home with me on a visit to Canada, and I actually hand-wrote replies on the plane! It was such a big success that I couldn't wait to refine the concept a little bit and assign the same project to another group the following year. The second time I assigned "A Lie in a Letter," I even brought a pile of 1-cent Canadian stamps back to Osaka for them to stick on the envelopes. I kept every single one of those letters until the day I left Japan, and packed a handful into the box I took home with me. They'll always make me laugh, and remind me of my fabulous ninensei students!
