Subject line: [blank]

Email message: turned in

That is an email composed by a 9th grader in Johnston County, North Carolina during the spring 2024 semester.

The trend to write emails like text messages is not unique to Johnston County, of course. In our digital era, students nationwide often don’t understand how to draft a professionally-written email.

That’s why Johnston County piloted Rubin’s new Propel email etiquette tool in the spring semester for middle and high school students.

Propel is a teaching tool for Gmail and Outlook that guides a student to compose a high-quality email. Propel does not use AI, and the tool requires students to do all the writing and critical thinking.

See a 1-minute demonstration of Propel here.

Let’s return to the email written by the 9th grader:

Subject line: [blank]

Email message: turned in

With the help of Propel, here’s what the email became:

Subject line: Completed work

Email message:

Good afternoon, Mrs. Roberts.

I hope you are doing well.

I wanted to let you know that I have completed my interview and turned it in.

Thank you,

– Alyssa

Now observe the growth among 6th graders too.

Here’s an example of a 6th grade email before Propel:

Subject line: why i have 72 grade

Email message: [blank]

And here’s an email in which the student used Propel:

Subject line: What I think the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland means

Email message:

Mrs. Woll,

Good morning. This is Evy from second block.

This is my answer for the journal prompt.

I think the rabbit hole represents part of Alice’s personality, such as the unfocused part, or distracted or curious.

Thank you for your time and effort for reading my answer for the journal prompt.

– Evy 

Johnston County 9th grade teacher Shelley Roberts: 

“The Propel tool was easy to use and helped my students so much! It is disappointing that many of them have no idea what the correct format of a letter/email should be. This tool reintroduced terms like body and greeting. The students loved how easy the ‘fill in the blank’ process was.”

Go here to try Propel for your school district!