Have You Ever Sent A Postcard?

      A few years back, I was on a plane going to New York when I read an article by New York Times writer, Guy Trebay. It was entitled "Going Postal." This article caught my eye because it had a big picture of a postcard from Utah. I love collecting postcards, and Trebay's witty explanations of postcards he has collected, his reasons, and why writing them still matters resonated with me. I tore his article out, and decided I would try and incorporate into a lesson plan with my students why it is important to write a postcard now and then. Trebay writes "A postcard is a tweet with a stamp." At the beginning of each school year for my 11th graders, we pour over his article and we talk in groups about the current state of tangible writing. I ask my students: "What do you guys have that is tangible? What are you going to show when you get a nice text message that you want to keep?" Most of my students do not even keep a journal.      One problem is that my students haven't really thought about it. And does it matter? Trebay laments that "the more that apps reduce the world to cunningly manageable integers of data, the more appealing the old forms of communication become." This generation has become so paperless that they don't feel it is a big deal. But I do get their attention, and we have some great discussion about why I think that it is important. Sometimes when I get a great text message, I write it down in my journal and put the date. I am pretty sentimental. Trebay remarks that "Historians of Facebook and Twitter will be left to scrounge around the Internet for the fugitive relics of the present communication age."
I ask my students to go home and ask their parents to look at their old letters and scrapbooks. Then, we make postcards. The majority of my classes have never written or received a postcard. This has become a favorite first couple of weeks activity, and many of my students get a kick out of sending a postcard to a friend or their grandparents. Last year, one of my students said, "Hey Mrs. Berry, why don't we send Mr. Trebay a postcard?" What a great idea. So, I went and bought three Utah postcards, and we picked one student to write legibly (that is a whole other topic), and the class decided what to write to Mr. Trebay. Some classes asked to stop by some time, while others asked him to write back. I also sent him an email with some pictures of the postcards we have made. These are some of my favorites. After a month or so, we received a postcard from Mr. Trebay! It was really cool! He sent us a postcard from Ethiopia. I love receiving a postcard in the mail. One of my earliest memories is receiving a postcard from my Grandma. She had a lot of grandkids, but you felt special when you received a postcard in the mail from her.

Everywhere I go, I  try and buy a couple of postcards, and then throughout the year, I send these out to my students. Students who perhaps need to be told thank you for sharing in class, or how well they did in helping in their group activity, or that I am glad they are in my class. Trebay has it right as he laments "I could do all that in a tweet, of course, or on Facebook…but then that would deprive my actual friends of the pleasure of coming across a souvenir in the mailbox, some goofy hula maiden or cheesy sunset scene, wedged among the Valu-Paks and unwelcome bills." I love hanging blank postcards on my bulletin board, or better yet, those that people have sent me. Tangible evidence of places seen or wish to be seen.