Objective(s)

Students will use email to compose letters and strengten writing skills.

National Standards

Technology: use telecommunications to collaborate, publish, and interact with peers, experts, and other audiences.

Language Arts: employ a range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.

Summary

In these lessons, students will be matched with an international student and communicate through email. Students will learn writing skills and a global sense as they communicate electronically, concentrating on sentence structure, spelling, details, and composition.

Technology and/or Materials Needed

• Computers with Internet access; at least one in the classroom
• Email addresses for students
• List of international students with email addresses

Implementation Time Frame

On-going through semester; approximately 20 minutes a week

Activities

After making contact with with IECC (International Email MAGIC (Rocket to the Stars)), obtain names and email addresses of students. Distribute names to students. Discuss with class the premise of the inter-classroom exchange. Discuss possible things to discuss with students of a foreign country. As well, discuss language limitations that the foreign students may have.

The management of this project depends on the accessibility of computers in the classroom. If a lab is available, all students may compose and send letters at the same time; or with a smaller number of computers available, students may take turns using the computers to compose and send letters.

When students compose letters, they should write cleanly, focusing on sentence structure, details and grammar, as they are modeling the English language for their email buddies.

Assessment

Students letters may be assessed for grammar and language usage.

Resources and Related Links

International Email MAGIC (Rocket to the Stars), www.iecc.org