Sixth-graders receive letters
from Jamaican pen pals
By Scott Mitchell Johnson
Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE — For about four months, sixth-graders at Presque Isle Middle School waited patiently … hoping they would hear back from their Jamaican pen pals before the end of the school year. Then on May 29, a large envelope from the Hope Valley Experimental School in Kingston, Jamaica arrived containing nearly 100 letters addressed to the soon-to-be seventh-graders.
Staff photos/Scott Mitchell Johnson
PRESQUE ISLE MIDDLE SCHOOL sixth-graders were thrilled to receive mail from their Jamaican pen pals recently. Letters from the PIMS students were mailed Jan. 23, 2013 and they heard back from students at the Hope Valley Experimental School in Kingston, Jamaica May 29. Displaying some of the letters are, clockwise from left: Jaidyn Blake, Kyler Caron, Erick Tompkins, Gabriella Underwood-Charette, Sydney Durepo, Cassidy McGrath and Anna Robinson. The Jamaican pen pal program was initiated by the Presque Isle Rotary Club.
NEARLY 100 LETTERS from students at the Hope Valley Experimental School in Kingston, Jamaica arrived May 29 at Presque Isle Middle School where the sixth-graders have been involved in a pen pal program that was initiated by the Presque Isle Rotary Club. It cost $32.86 in postage to send the letters to Presque Isle. The envelope featured 22 stamps, many of Reggae singer-songwriter Bob Marley.
“[So much time went by that] it seemed like they had forgotten about it,” said student Jaidyn Blake. “I was surprised that they had enough people in that one school on that tiny, little island country to actually send enough letters to our entire sixth grade.”
Letters from the PIMS students were mailed Jan. 23, 2013 and traveled 2,047 air miles.
Cassidy McGrath said she was happy to receive a response.
“When we first wrote our letters, we didn’t know if we would be writing to a boy or a girl, so I just asked what they like to do for hobbies and how old they were,” she said. “A boy ended up writing back and he likes football, basketball and net ball, but I don’t know what that is.”
“I have a lot of pets, so I asked my pen pal if she has a lot of pets, too. I also asked what she did in her spare time and what they do for sports,” said Anna Robinson. “She wrote back saying that she likes tennis, volleyball, football, which is like our soccer, and basketball. She also has five dogs.
“My pen pal even included her phone number,” Robinson said, “but I don’t know if my parents will let me call or not.”
Erick Tompkins said he asked his pen pal what their culture was like and what they did in their free time.
“She answered all of my questions, and said that Jamaica was a hot, tropical place,” he said.
“My pen pal said she was 10 years old and was actually born the same week as me but in a different year. She said she likes mangos and apples,” said Blake. “I have a Skype app on my computer, so I could pretty easily set it up. If my pen pal has the same capabilities, I could keep in touch with her.”
The Jamaican pen pal program was initiated by the Presque Isle Rotary Club.
According to June Gallant, who co-chairs Rotary’s literacy committee with Sharon Campbell, each year the committee tries to come up with new ways to promote literacy in both the local community and abroad.
“Because Rotary is an international organization, we worked hard this time to find an international project,” said Gallant. “This was a way to teach the middle school students about service to others, which is what Rotary is all about.”
Plans for the pen pal project began last spring when Gallant met with the sixth-grade social studies/English teachers.
“June came and met with us about the possibility of doing an exchange with students from a school in a different country,” said teacher Barry Wright. “Originally she suggested Africa, but in our curriculum we study the Western Hemisphere, so we suggested maybe a country that our students would be learning about. We had given her a couple of suggestions and Jamaica was one of them. June did a little more legwork and was able to make a link up with Jamaica which we were very happy about.”
Wright said the project met several learning goals in the sixth-grade curriculum.
“It was a writing project and a lot of students don’t like to write, but this was one where there was an engaging purpose for the writing which motivated the students to do a nice job,” he said. “We followed the friendly-letter format. The content was up to them, but we made some suggestions. They did a draft and revisions, so we followed the writing process. It was a great reinforcement for practical writing … real life writing skills.
“In addition, we study the Caribbean region,” said Wright, “so it tied in very well with our social studies curriculum.”
Gallant said she hopes to continue this project with the same students next year.
“We’d like this to travel with them through their middle school career and continue to teach them about service and the international aspect of Rotary,” she said. “In the end, when they’re in the eighth grade, we’d like to have a world service project so that all students involved in the pen pal program — both locally and in Jamaica — can work together on something.”
Tompkins said he hopes the seventh-grade teachers will be receptive to the pen pal initiative next year.
“It would be fun if we could correspond with the same people,” he said. “It would also be nice if maybe we could Skype because we could talk face-to-face and not have to wait so long for a response.”
