Hello Postcrossing Community,
I am an English Composition professor with 25 incoming Freshman composition students (starting coursework in August through December 2022 (large holiday xmas break and again Jan through May 2023) looking for a similar-sized “sister” class in another state or country to exchange letters (in English) with my students.
Any class level from 5th grade (K -12) through first-year at a university would be a great fit but younger students work especially well. I have done similar projects (it is low labor and high reward for both instructor and students). My hope would be to have a roughly 1-1 ratio pairing between the students and to have the students exchange a total of 6 (1-page typed letters) for the entire term (three letters from the US students and 3 response letters from the other “your” students). I will be following a basic curriculum/model for service-learning and community engagement and can provide all the tools and information needed. This is a project I simply add on top of my existing course. Additionally, my university’s community-engagement program frequently asks for the paired institution to meet with our organization (over zoom), do a tiny bit of e-paperwork to be a community “partner” and learn a bit about us (this is a liability requirement). The entire project can be collaborative between us and altered to meet the goals of your class or student population. Typically the goals for my students involve the practice of basic composition objectives and communication (audience and rhetoric), but more importantly there is a larger goal regarding civic engagement wherein our older students can connect with/mentor younger students and the two groups can learn from one another about writing, service-learning, community issues and other shared critical thinking and engagement and social topics we agree upon.
I struggle a bit navigating this forum. Please email me if you are interested at hostutle@sonoma.edu. You may get an (out of office message–please don’t worry I will write you back). You can also find out more about me and similar projects I have participated in by visiting my webpage at https://www.emilyalicehostutler.com/.
I’d love to partner and provide our students with an organize, simple, fullfilling and amazing penpal experience.