Lessons on Teaching Students to Write a Business Letter

A proper business letter can help students land a job.

Learning to write a proper business letter will help students succeed in whatever career they eventually choose. In addition to learning to write in formal and official language, students need to know formatting, including such elements as the sender's address, the salutation and the closing. Teach your students how to do this properly, using lessons and activities that will help them practice the art of the business letter. Remind your students that proper communication in business can often be the difference between success and failure.

Print this article

Teach Basics
- Give students a lesson the basic formatting of a business letter. Teach them how to format the sender's address, date, inside address, salutation, body, closing and any enclosures. A good way to do this is to distribute a few well-formatted business letters using slightly different formats. Show students exactly what this formatting looks like. Give students a short quiz on the basic components of a business letter.
Correcting a Bad Letter
- Reinforce your lesson on business letter formatting by having students fix up an improperly formatted letter. Take a regular business letter and put the date in the wrong format, put the address in the wrong place and make other mistakes throughout. Give students a set amount of time to correct it. Evaluate their work on your own, or have them exchange corrected letters and discuss and mark as a class.
Letter From a Fictional Character
- Make business letter writing more fun by having students exercise their creativity. Have students pick a fictional character and write a business letter from his perspective. Allow characters from books, fairy tales, television shows and movies. Students might choose to write a letter from Bugs Bunny to Elmer Fudd, or from Ahab to Moby-Dick. Allow them to make up addresses for the characters, as long as they use the proper formatting.
Writing a Real Business Letter
- At some point, students need to be able to write a proper business letter on their own. Give students individual projects and scenarios to research and write. For example, tell one student he is dissatisfied with a specific product from a real company. The student must research whom to contact at the company and other pertinent information and write the letter. Other possible scenarios are someone applying for an internship with government, someone seeking advice from a lawyer, and someone asking a neighbor to keep quiet at night.