Improving Student Writing Through Email Mentoring

by Mary Burns

Teaching a writing class, Ms. Burns was struggling with her students. They continued to make consistent mistakes, use a limited vocabulary and remain uninterested in the assignments. She tried peer reviews, however, her students were just getting bored and frustrated. Finally, she came up with the idea to set up her students with "mentors" who were in jobs the student's were interested in. The students and mentors were required to communicate at least four times over email and Ms. Burns graded their emails as the writing assignments. They went over proper email etiquette, etc. Students and mentors alike were enthusiastic about the project and exceeded the minimum work. Students vocabulary and overall writing improved immensely.

Q1: How can I use this idea/project in my teaching?

A1: Email is fairly simple to use and many schools now own computers for students. The real challenge would be to have a social/professional network to contact people from different career areas who would be interested in mentoring a student. This project is mainly geared toward older students such as middle school and high school, who have a bigger idea of what they want to do for a career.

Q2:How could I adapt this idea for elementary students?

A2: I am planning to teach elementary students, and while the career mentoring may be a bit too early for the students, the elements of email communication for writing skills are important. As I have read and heard before, there are ways to communicate with a classroom from another part of the world. Students can connect over internet with other students and you can collaborate with the other teacher for projects, etc. Not only does this bring awareness of different cultures and geography, but it is a fun way to have students practice and improve writing through social networking and email communication.