Return to Sender

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

ACTIVITY: Writing Epistolary Fiction

In the Pre-Reading Prompt, you told a true story in a letter or email to someone you know. In this Activity, expand your epistolary skills by writing a short piece of fiction through letters, blog posts, texts, or other documents in the epistolary form.

• Create two characters who will dialogue via letters, posts, texts, comments, emails, or some combination of forms.
• The conflict should be apparent within the first or second document.
• Recall the traditional parts of a short story: exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution. These can serve as an outline if needed or helpful.
• Draft and revise your story; use peer editing partners or circles as time allows.

If you have the opportunity to read your story aloud, choose a partner to represent the second character’s voice or documents.

Teaching Suggestion: Consider sharing excerpts of middle grade or YA epistolary stories such as Beverly Cleary’s Dear Mr. Henshaw or Same Sun Here by Silas House, Neela Vaswani, and Hilary Schenker, along with Archie’s War: A Scrapbook of the First World War by Marcia Williams, or even a choice in the Wimpy Kid Series. Seeing and hearing some examples may inspire students with ideas and creative formats. Encourage students to think “short short story” and simple plots, so that they have time to meet any challenges presented by the epistolary form. For a strong connection to the novel and potential for comparative discussion, challenge students to include in their story one of the novel’s themes of Recognizing a Higher Justice, Giving and Receiving within and between Families, or Inclusion and Acceptance.

• “Five Things to Remember When Writing Epistolary Fiction” begins with a layman’s description and ways to achieve the epistolary form other than letters.
• “Writing Epistolary Novels in the Modern Age” offers some hints students can apply to short epistolary pieces like their story.

Paired Text Extension

Read the excerpt from Letters to Rifka by Karen Hesse available on the publisher’s website.

What information comes across in the beginning of this epistolary work that you think might be important to the plot or themes later in the book? How does the opening of this novel compare to your story in terms of pace, conflict, and character voice? In what ways are Rifka and Mari alike, and which theme in Return to Sender comes across in this excerpt?

Teaching Suggestion: Epistolary novels that are also historical like Letters to Rifka provide another element of storytelling (setting) to discuss, but any middle grade epistolary title might be used for comparison in this extension. If the suggested themes for Return to Sender (Recognizing a Higher Justice, Giving and Receiving within and between Families, or Inclusion and Acceptance) do not apply to your selected title, challenge your students to suggest a different common theme possibility.

• You can find many lists online of epistolary novels; “Letters, Lists, and Instant Messages: Epistolary Books for Middle Grade” is one from Barnes and Noble.