Hectic. That is the best way to describe the end of the school year. Every person in the school building is in survival mode for the month of May; teachers are trying to fill the day with activities students enjoy but aren’t too time-consuming to grade.

At the end of each school year, I always had one go-to assignment that would bring the year to a close: an eighth grade letter. Students write a letter that they address to themselves detailing what they are like as eighth graders: what their favorite song is, who their crush is, what their favorite app is. When that group of students becomes seniors in high school, I mail them their eighth grade letters. I try to encourage students to think about things that will likely change in four years (e.g. in four years, their family will most likely still be comprised of the same members, but their friends, music, technology, television tastes will change). The final topic I ask students to write about is what they see themselves doing after high school because these plans often change too. While students are detailing their lives in their letters, I write my own letter to myself describing what their eighth grade class was like. It is sort of like a year in review for me. When I mail the students their letters, I read my letter to myself. It serves as a reminder of that class of students, and it also gives me an opportunity to reflect on how much I have grown as a teacher in those four years. As in parenting, teaching has a “time flies” feeling: the days are long, but the years…the years fly by. Students often come back and tell me how much they love reading their eighth grade letters: it makes them laugh as they reflect on all of the changes that four years has brought.

Please share your end-of-the-year assignments with us!