LESSON FOUR: Writing a Letter of Recommendation

 

LESSON DESCRIPTION

In this lesson, students write a letter of recommendation.

 

GRADE-LEVEL EXPECTATIONS ADDRESSED

R3C    Use details from the text(s) to analyze and evaluate the author's use of information and logic to express his or her ideas through word choice.

                W2F   In composing text, use a variety of sentence structures.

W3E  Compose texts for

§         a variety of career and workplace communications (e.g., job application, resume, cover letter, college application essay, thank-you note, follow-up note, forms, project proposal,
brochure, and/or concise directions)

§         for various audiences and purposes, selecting and applying appropriate format, style, tone and point of view       

 

LESSON MATERIALS

§               Materials

o              The English Teacher’s Companion excerpts included in the lesson

o              The Writer’s Workout Book, Art Peterson, 1996

o          Sample recommendation letters can be obtained from: www.jobs-matrix.com.   On this site, go to Recommendation Letters.   It is suggested that letters of recommendation be
published works; therefore, use of a computer lab is suggested.

o              Glossary

               

§               Handouts provided

o              Formative Assessment Letter Scoring Guide

o              Sentence Structure Practice Worksheet  

o              Sample Letter of Recommendation  

 

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

 

1.        As a group, students review the elements and format of a letter, using a Sample Letter of Recommendation.  Students discuss whom they might ask to write a favorable letter of recommendation. 
Discuss the following:

a.        Are there certain individuals whom you would prefer or not prefer to write letters of recommendation for you?   Individually, students generate a list of five people they might ask to
write a personal letter of recommendation.

b.       What is the difference between promoting personal accomplishments and bragging?

 

2.        Using the following excerpts from Jim Burke’s The English Teacher’s Companion, consider the differences between literary style and “technical” style.

 

Technical:  The brown wooden bookcase held over 300 books, approximately 200 small paperback books, 70 medium size hard-back books, and 50 tall coffee-table books.  The five shelves,
approximately three feet long, rested in a frame three feet wide by six feet high. 

 

                        Literary:  The bookcase groaned under the burden of the heavy, hardbound books lining its shelves.  Creaking like an old man arising from his rocker, the old shelves gave up centuries of
knowledge as a borrower lightened its load by removing a volume of Tolstoy’s War and Peace.  (Work is referenced from The Art of Workplace English: A Curriculum for All Students,
Carolyn Boiarsky 1997.)

 

                Using the Sample Letter of Recommendation, students select sentences from the letter to analyze and evaluate for sentence structure and lengths for stylistic effects.  Reference The Writer’s
Workout Book, Art Peterson, 1996 and Jim Burke’s The English Teacher’s Companion for instructional support.  Use Comparing Stylistic Effects and Sentence Structure in Workplace Writing
both as a student handout and overhead example to help revise and experiment with sentence styles and structures.  Create as many panels as you find necessary.

 

3.        Discuss with students the following:

1.     If you asked that a letter of recommendation be written for you, what would you want the writer to say about you?
2.     Would the type of job for which you applied influence the language or contents of a letter of recommendation?
3.     Ask students to focus on logic, reasonableness, faulty reasoning, and unfounded inferences.  When discussing style with students, use the Glossary.  1.  The characteristics of a work that
       reflect its author’s distinctive way of writing; 2.  The author’s use of language, its effects, and its appropriateness to the author’s intent and theme.

 

4.        Optional:  Students write letters of recommendations for one another.

 

5.        Using cooperative grouping, students create a checklist of information that could be included in a letter of recommendation for a job.  Using the checklist, students compile personal information
for someone to write a letter of recommendation for them.  The teacher monitors student checklists to ensure appropriate details are included.  Students save this formative assessment artifact
for their student job portfolio to be used in the summative assessment.

 

 

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT  

Pretending to be a teacher or former employer, students write their own letter of recommendation for a job, based on the interest inventory and job research completed earlier in the unit.  Students
should consider word choice and sentence structure. The letter would be included with a job application.  Save this artifact for the summative assessment.