Education majors communicate with elementary students via Pen Pal Exchange

By Mardi Ford
The La Grande Observer

Published: March 23, 2004

The Observer/MARDI FORD Revealing pals: Clues and cues gleaned through weeks of letter writing were used to reveal identities when fourth-grader Raelyn Kanoho finally got to meet her Pen Pal Exchange partner Amy Carollo, a senior at Eastern Oregon University, face to face at a party hosted by Diana Grandeen's class at Stella Mayfield Elementary March 5.

La Grande -- On the surface the Pen Pal Exchange project is an exercise for education majors at Eastern Oregon University.

The assignment? To communicate with an elementary student as a pen pal for one term and evaluate his or her literacy skills. The Pen Pal Exchange is part of a college core class on language arts in intermediate grades.

The exchange pairs a class of future teachers with a class of elementary school students for a college term while the two groups exchange letters. The exchange provides an opportunity for the college group to evaluate the younger students' writing and reading skills.

"My students were able to have the experience of looking at children's writing and how they express themselves," said Sharon Evoy.

Evoy, an assistant professor at EOU, is friends with Diana Grandeen, a fourth-grade teacher at Stella Mayfield Elementary in Elgin.

The program had been used before with great success, Evoy said, so she and Grandeen decided to team up their students for another Pen Pal Exchange during EOU's winter term.

"I credit Diana's enthusiasm for influencing her students' participation," Evoy said. She said Grandeen incorporated her students letter writing into existing classroom activities. That support, said Evoy, encouraged the children to put more of themselves into their writing.

"She helped them to understand they had an audience for what they were writing," said Evoy. The purpose behind the exchange for the elementary students, Evoy said, is to sharpen their writing skills by making the experience of writing more meaningful — to encourage them to put "more heart" into what they write.

"Through a pen pal relationship," Evoy said, "the students take a bit more ownership in what they write."

Her own students are able to experience the type of assessments and literary tools they will use as teachers in the classroom, Evoy said.

The culmination of the program included meeting the children, listening to them read aloud and then reading to them — all to familiarize the college students with the tools of their trade.

The purpose was not to grade the children's work, Evoy said, but to have the experience of assessing literacy skills of elementary-age students.

And it was a good practical experience, said Amy Carollo, one of the budding teachers, who said she learned "lots."

"But the biggest thing," Carollo said, "was the experience of getting to connect on a personal level outside of the classroom."

Carollo said her own college classmates have been together since fall. They go through the teaching program together as a unit.

"So we've gotten pretty tight," she said. "And all of us really got into this thing — we talked a lot about the impact we had on these little kids."

Carollo, who has always known she would be an elementary school teacher, said they had no idea how important the pen pal experience would be to both groups.

"These kids thought of us as role models," she said. "And we fell in love with them — we were so honored by their response."

Carollo said the group looked forward to Fridays when letters from the fourth-graders would arrive.

"They put so much effort into them," she said. "They'd put stickers on 'em and make little decorations — draw pictures — all kinds of little things to make each one special."

Meeting their pen pals, Carollo said, was a great moment.

"They were so excited and proud when we paired up, like, ‘This is my pen pal!' It made us all feel so good."

Will Carollo keep up the relationship with her pen pal, Raelyn Kanoho?

"The schools have left that up to the individuals," Carollo said. "I probably won't write every Friday, but I'd like to keep in touch with Raelyn and see what she's up to."

Contact Information

University Advancement Eastern Oregon University One University Boulevard La Grande, OR 97850 phone 541.962.3740 fax 541.962.3680 email University Advancement