Paired Writing: Middle School Students Find an Audience in College Students

A middle school classroom teacher and a college instructor describe an activity in which 14 students in a sixth-grade special education class corresponded with college students enrolled in a language arts methods course. The middle school students were excited about writing and motivated to do their best, and their writing grew in complexity, accuracy, and length as the bi-weekly correspondence continued. The college students saw both the problems and the growth in their partners' writing skills and had the opportunity to implement some of the teaching techniques they studied in the classroom. (RS)