Monica Rankin: Journal Exchange Activity

This activity was conducted between university students in a general English class for 1^st year students.

Required before beginning the activity:

Two classes with the same number of students
20 minutes of silent writing in each class
1 Notebook for each pair of students

I did this pen pal exchange with two 1^st year Communication classes I have, one that meets on Wednesdays and the other on Fridays. I began by making notebooks for the students, I used B5 size paper folded it in half and used one sheet for each letter. This size worked well simply because the format appeared to be short and therefore non- threatening, a length that even the worst writers could accomplish. I handed out one notebook to each student in the Wednesday class and asked them to write a letter of introduction. The only information I gave was that the pen pal was a fellow student in the same university taking the same class from me on another day of the week. I explained that they would be given 15 minutes to write without the use of their dictionaries and in the final five minutes they would be permitted to consult them.

I asked that they do the following in each letter:

Date the letter
Use a greeting
Include a closing
Refrain from exchanging personal information such as phone numbers, addresses etc.

The letters from the Wednesday class were collected and handed out randomly to my Friday students who were given the same instructions. At the end of the term I collected the booklets, read the letters and the students received a grade which was 20% of their final mark.