Junior Alexandra Dye, at the beginning of March, introduced an opportunity—called the Pen Pal Project—for 18 high school students to connect with 18 third graders at the neighboring Seawell Elementary School.
Over the course of the 2023-24 school year, Dye has been working mornings at Seawell in Angela Marques’s third-grade classroom. Through the internship, she has been able to work directly with the students during their math block and act as an assistant teacher.
The Pen Pal project started as a final project for Dye’s internship with the elementary school. High school students who signed up to participate were paired with a third-grade student and given index cards to start conversations with the Seawell students.
The index cards came to resemble postcards, reinforcing the learning that Seawell students were doing, and the Pen Pal project was born.
“In order to make it a beneficial project and track progress, each week I sent out a list of questions for the high schoolers to choose and put in their postcard for the child to respond to,” Dye explained.
These questions aligned with topics the third graders were learning in their curriculum; some of the questions were about social-emotional learning, and others were simply about their daily lives.
Marques believes the Pen Pal Project has been all around beneficial. “This has been a unique experience because it’s more conversational and can provide elementary students with direct feedback from the high schooler on their postcard,” Marques said. “Teachers can also use postcards as a way to informally assess student writing.”
Both students from the elementary school and high school enjoyed the chance to meet each other and create new friendships.
The Seawell students were particularly eager to communicate with their pen pals.
Marques said that she was often asked questions like, “Is my postcard ready?,” “Has my penpal written back yet?” and “When will we be able to meet our pen pals?”
Junior Amanda Aguilar, who served as a Pen Pal, highlighted the gratifying experience she had. “It was really fun to interact with people that you otherwise never would,” Aguilar said.
Senior Scotty Benjamin also shared that he enjoyed the conversations he had; he felt he had a positive effect and was surprised to see “how much less stressed they are than us.”
Dye expressed that her goal with the Pen Pal project was to connect both age groups with a fun activity that included real-life communication skills.
Marques agreed that the project was an enjoyable and different way to get her students to learn.
“The Pen Pal Project has been very beneficial in encouraging student writing,” she shared. “Like any skill, writing improves with practice and any activity that motivates student learning is beneficial. I would absolutely want to give my future students this same opportunity.”
