You've got Spam! is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Hi!
My name is Sandy.
I just turned 12. For my birthday I got my very own computer!
I love my computer.
I play lots of fun games and chat with my friends. My Mom even helped my set up my very own email account.
I email my cousins all the time.
They live way down in Texas.
Before I got my computer, I could only talk to them once in awhile.
The other day, I checked my email hoping to hear back from my cousins. When I logged on, it said that I had one new message. But It wasn’t from my cousins.
The email was from someone I didn’t know. In the subject line it said, “YOU HAVE WON A FREE I-PAD!!!! ACT NOW! THIS IS A LIMITED TIME OFFER!!!!!!!”
I was so excited!
Just think of all the games I could play!
I quickly opened the email. I found out that all I needed to do was answer some questions. I tried to fill out all the questions, but I didn’t know some of the answers.
I asked my Mom for help. When she read my email, she wasn’t excited like I was.
My Mom said, “Sandy, this is spam.”
“No Mom” I laughed, “Spam is meat. This is an I-pad.”
“No Sandy, Spam is when someone you don’t know sends you an email trying to sell you something or get personal information from you. You can also get a computer virus .”
“How do you know that?” I asked, hoping she was wrong. I really wanted that I-pad.
“Well First of all,” My Mom explained, “the “to:” line is blank. This means it was a mass email, sent to hundreds of people.”
“Maybe they have hundreds of I-pads” I said.
“Well I also know that spam emails use similar words. Some of these are: limited offer, act now, and free. Also, they will use too many exclamation points and they will type in all capital letters.”
“Oh...” I said softy, “my email has all of those.”
“Yes it does, but the most important thing is that you don’t know this person.” My Mom turned very serious, “You should never give out personal information to people you don’t know.”
“Okay Mom, I won’t.” I said. Now I was sure I wouldn’t be getting a free I-pad.
References and Citations
Cover Page- Picture of computer by William Vann
Page 3- Image of a girl and a keyboard- Photograph by Kaptain Kobold
Page 4- Map of texas- from the David Rumsey Map Collection
Page 5-Silhouette of a girl at a computer-
Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com
http://school.discoveryeducation.com/clipart/clip/cmpsilho.html
Page 6- Virus warning
Page 7- Computer in distress- Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com
http://school.discoveryeducation.com/clipart/clip/computer.html
Page 8- Scary stranger
Page 9- girl on the computer
Resources for story:
http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/software/page11545.cfm