Using Writing to Make a Difference

 
As a language arts teacher, I am always looking for ways to make writing meaningful for students. In previous years I have begun the school year writing instruction with students writing about their own lives and personal experiences. This approach has served well as a starting point, however, moving from personal experiences into other forms of writing can often deflate the enthusiasm that personal writing can create. Although I have students continue to write personal journal entries throughout the year, the following is a project I decided to initiate this school year in order to move into other writing forms, as well as allow students to learn a significant lesson about other youth from a different area of the world. Not that I originally included this in my lesson plans...

Originally, I wanted students to move form personal journal writing to more formal writing through letter composition (i.e., learning about both friendly and business letter formats and purposes). My thought was if students were communicating with another person, their chosen topic would remain relevant to their lives and experiences. Therefore, interest could be maintained throughout the writing instruction, and this could provide a smooth transition to other forms of writing we cover throughout the school year. I began by having students compose a friendly letter to someone they admired. One student decided to write a family member currently serving in the armed forces in Iraq. Other students became interested in writing military service men and women as well. Our class quickly discovered that there were many students who had family members and friends serving overseas. This discovery brought forth a thorough discussion of student thoughts, feelings, and opinions.

During the course of the friendly letter assignment, I decided to read aloud an excerpt from the book "Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace, One School at a Time", by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. I chose this book in order to share another person's honorable experience, as well as allow students to write a literature response. Quickly students' chatter began to focus on the children of war and our privilege of going to school. After a little class research, not only do students want to write letters to our soldiers, but many also have the desire to help students in war torn areas continue to attend school. Throughout this unit we have discussed informational writing, writing proposals, and the classic business letter, all centered upon this topic that has proved meaningful for the students.   

Although we are still in the beginning stages of this project, as a class we are in the middle of discovering what we can do together, and this has certainly made writing instruction more interesting and meaningful for us all! Online resources I have used in preparation include the Central Asia Institute, co-founded by Greg Mortensen, and Pennies for Peace.

Letter Writing Lessons:

Pen Pals: Classes from two different schools research and record information about birds. Using both computer and letter-writing skills, students communicate their findings to the other school. Information from both schools is shared, compared, and communicated through friendly letters. Both online and computer software resources are utilized in gathering and sharing information.

Personalized Pen Pals: As a culminating activity in a friendly letter unit, students compose a letter and design letterhead in order to email a friendly letter. This combines both computer technologies as well as allows students to use digital photography and scanners in order to design the graphic components of this lesson.

Exchange Students: This lesson not only reinforces letter writing skills, but also gives students an opportunity to learn about another culture. Students read an article about cell phone use among Iraqi teens. Students then create a guide to our culture in order to share with a pen pal from a war torn country. Websites and resources are provided in this lesson.

Letter Writing and Snail Mail Relay: Students learn how to compose a proper block letter by writing a letter to a former teacher. Students are required to learn all parts of a block letter as well as peer revise and edit each other's work. A component that could be added to this lesson is an email letter to compare the process and format of sending and receiving both types of mail.