Wednesday Writing - Pen Pals

I know some seriously cool bloggers, but Holly at Fourth Grade Flipper definitely tops the bill. Not only was she the first person to donate to my DonorsChoose project, but now she is helping my class find an authentic audience to write to. I've done some writing of letters with my classes in the past, but we've never had pen pals before. Not until Holly posted on her blog that she was on the lookout for a group to swap letters. I didn't see the blog post first, though. My BBBIRL (Best Blogging Buddy in Real Life) Jivey did. She immediately fired off a response to Holly's request. Holly was looking for 46 students to share letters and with my 26 kids paired with Jessica Ivey's 25 we had more than enough.

This fits so perfectly with my original plan for my group this year. We ask our students to write every day in our classrooms, but often times it's just a response to a book or an informational report. The students don't really see their audience for these daily writings. I wanted to offer them some real authentic people to write to, which would in turn give their writing more purpose. We are currently crafting a letter to our Cafeteria Manager to suggest Meatless Mondays in our school to help combat childhood obesity. I plan on having them write to their favorite authors later this year. But nothing will produce such results as Holly's Pen Pal Project.

Jessica has already written about our pen pals on her blog , so you can read more about it there and see some pictures. It was shipped out on Friday, and now we play the waiting game. I can't wait for our letters to get their first reply.