Hi-Why-Want-Bye

I love a well-written email – I read so few of them. I offer Exhibit A from a middle schooler, sent to six people. Here is the email in its entirety:

“I was going to study for the quiz and write down my answer now but we can’t. The choir people said we would get a extra day is this true?”

Over the past few years I’ve spent more and more time teaching my students how to avoid the above confusion by crafting effective emails. Like much of the changes in my work over the past three years, I’ve stolen from aviation. 

Radio work is one of the more challenging aspects of flying, at least in the beginning. Unlike writing an email, you’re communicating with someone while dozens or potentially hundreds of other people listen. It’s scary, and you can always tell a fresh pilot by how terrified they sound on the radio. One of flying’s rites of passage is sounding like an absolute idiot at least a dozen times. 

What’s wonderful about the system is that there is a prescribed way to work the radio calls, and once cracked it becomes a lot easier. The formula: who you are calling, who you are, where you are, what you want. That’s it. I might call Modesto with, “Modesto Ground, Skyhawk 5286 Charlie at the ramp, request taxi to runway two eight.” No frills, no confusion – a great system.

I’ve modified this concept for my students. The formula: Hi-Why-Want-Bye. That’s an introduction, why they’re writing, what they want, and goodbye. Many students (and adults!) bury their ask amid a clutter of confusion, or they weaken it: “I was wondering if I could retake the test?” is not *actually* a question. “I didn’t do well on the recent science test. May I retake it?” is way better. 

The next step, in both radio calls and good emails, is to anticipate and address what’s coming next. If I call Modesto Tower and tell them I’m ready to depart, and there’s someone coming in to land, I certainly hope I won’t get a takeoff clearance. Yet. But it’s coming, and while that traffic is landing I am getting prepared both to take off and to respond to Tower when they give me the go-ahead. 

Our above email about retaking the test was decent. It gets improved by thinking about what the response will be. Some of the time, teachers will say, “Sure. When would you like to take it?” Now we’re in a back and forth about scheduling, and who knows how long that takes. So we add to the initial email, “If so, does either Tuesday during lunch or Wednesday after school work?” And then we sign it and send it. 

Aside from its brevity, what I like about Hi-Why-Want-Bye is that it forces the student to define what it is they want and then ask for it. Alerting a teacher to the fact that a grade was input incorrectly is not the same as asking them to fix it. I’ll typically spend some time showing the student how to do this, and then over time that skill becomes baked in and they start corresponding with me that way. So in addition to likely getting the teacher to change the grade, we also get some practice in precision of language and straightforward requests. And that’s stacking functions…which we’ll save for another day.