Student letters mailed to Jamaica
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
LETTERS WRITTEN by Presque Isle Middle School sixth-graders were mailed to students at the Hope Valley Experimental School in Kingston, Jamaica, last Wednesday. The pen pal program was initiated by the Presque Isle Rotary Club, which was looking for a new way to promote literacy in both the local community and internationally.
Pictured with some of the letters are, from left: June Gallant, co-chair of Rotary’s literacy committee; students Brody Gallagher-Easler, Carter Rice, Carson Jalbert, Aubrey Buck, Sherralyn Robbins and Emily Poitras, and Sharon Campbell, literacy committee co-chair.
PRESQUE ISLE — Presque Isle Middle School sixth-graders recently wrote letters to students at the Hope Valley Experimental School in Kingston, Jamaica as part of a pen pal program 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.
“We’re starting small with the pen pal program, and we’re hoping by the end of the school year that both the PIMS students and the Jamaican students can read the same book and do some sort of interactive book group discussion,” she said.
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 meets several learning goals in the sixth-grade curriculum.
“We’ll be starting our formal study of the Caribbean region in February or March, so it ties in very well with our social studies curriculum, as well as our ELA curriculum for writing purposes,” he said. “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.
“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,” said Wright. “A lot of students use e-mail today, which we may look at down the road, but I hope this project shows them there is still a purpose in hardcopy mail.”
In her letter, student Aubrey Buck asked what the climate was like in Jamaica and what they do at their school.
“I asked them if they liked any sports and about their family. I told them about my family, that I have a dog and a cat, I told them about my two brothers and my Mom and my Dad,” said Buck. “It would be really cool to get a letter back because Jamaica is far away and I don’t know much about the country. I’d like to learn more. I think this will be a fun way to learn about Jamaica and their culture.”
Emily Poitras shared a little about her daily life and how she spends her time.
“I told them that I love to read and that one of my biggest hobbies is dancing and I love to do hip-hop. I asked them what their neighborhood and their friends were like,” she said. “It would be different and cool to hear back from them. I usually just get letters from family and friends; I’ve never actually gotten a letter before from outside the country.”
Wright said he’s anxious for the students to make some “cultural connections.”
“We’re excited for students to have a firsthand experience with learning about another culture rather than just reading about it in a book or seeing a video,” he said. “This project is kind of exotic in that it’s not just writing a letter to someone who’s across town but to someone who is 5,000 miles away.”
Gallant said Campbell, who has some contacts as a past Rotary president, reached out to different areas in Jamaica and heard back from the president of the Rotary Club in Kingston.
“He thought the idea was fabulous and got us in touch with the principal at the Hope Valley Experimental School,” said Gallant. “It took a few months to get that process going, but once we did make the connection, they were very excited and receptive to our idea.
“We’d like this to start with the sixth-graders and then 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.”
The 140 letters were mailed last Wednesday.
