I rolled out a fun activity in my creative writing class recently, as part as my ongoing attempt to help my students add intrigue and mystery to their stories. I brought in a stack of envelopes and got them to imagine that one of their characters received a mysterious letter—but a letter that had been through quite an adventure, as demonstrated by the condition of the envelope.
So . . . we took those crisp white envelopes and splattered and dabbed paint on them to represent mud, we smudged them with fingerprints, we nibbled them with stapler removers, we scorched them with a candle, and we sealed them with wax. All of this was to give the envelope some history and spark that sense of adventure in a story.
Many of the students chose to draw ornate designs on the envelope, and others chose to draw stamps as well. (Doing this activity made me realize that the stamp design could be a whole side project and it would be fun to draw those on a separate page then cut them out and affix them afterwards.)
Of course, the students also wrote something to be included inside the envelope. Some of them had invisible ink messages from a previous class they wanted to put in there, while others chose to write a series of riddles or a provocative threat.
It was my first time doing this specific activity, but it was definitely a lot of fun to beat up those envelopes! This project would certainly serve as a fun story starter and, in that case, the entire writing assignment could be the letter inside (as opposed to adding texture to an existing story, which is what I did for this particular class).
Between the Cracks of Here and There 