A Must-Read For Any H.S. Teacher Who Is Asked To Write A Letter Of Recommendation (In Other Words, Most Of Them)

For many high school teachers, the next six months is will include countless requests from students for letters of recommendation.

Educator Ray Salazar has come up with a simple (I can’t believe I haven’t thought of it earlier) way to make it a learning experience for students, and a much less time-consuming one for teachers: He asks students to write a draft of it first!

He share simple guidelines that he provides to students in his brilliant post, How to write letters of recommendation for high-school students. The outline is easily adaptable to any situation.

I’m certainly going to use his idea with most of my students this year.

However, I think I’ll also have a few exceptions.

I’ll ask my English Language Learner students to use the form I’ll develop. But, instead of asking them to actually write a draft, I’ll just have them do it a outline form. They’ve got enough writing challenges to deal with during their senior year.

There are also some students, I believe, who can use a letter of recommendation less for a college or scholarship, and more for a need to hear/read something particularly affirming about themselves. These are students who have experienced, or are experiencing, substantial trauma in their lives. I don’t think I’ll ask those students to write their own drafts.

Have you tried Ray’s method with your students? How has it worked?