Letter Writing and Learning

Yesterday I participated in my first ever parent/teacher/student conferences and I learned a lot. Most of it is the students are generally aware of where they struggle and can help find strategies that will help them. One of the students talked about writing letters to people to help her write more and this made me think of how I learned to write in grade four, a pen pal.

My grade four teacher did a lot of work centred around the north and every year she set up pen pals for her students to send letters to. I believe I had two in fact but I cannot remember correctly. I remember how exciting it was when we got the letters and got to write responses, we had so many questions for them. We sent pictures and shared about our lives in an entirely different environment. We studied the communities that our pen pals lived in. We learned about Canada in a way we would have not learned if it wasn't for our pen pals.

I do not still have these letters from them but I really enjoyed it in grade four. It was probably a disaster writing wise and a lot of work to set up but was it worth it to me as a student? Yes and I bet it was worth it for my teacher (Mrs. Gartrell who was awesome and had so many unique lessons) because she was able to teach us about Northern Canada by us asking other kids. Students were engaged, practiced penmanship and writing. We learned about an area of the country we knew very little about. I still remember where my pen pal lived too. She lived in Inuvik.