Pen Pal Exchange
Introduction
Although you could travel around Oahu in a day, the communities that make up the island are unique. Kipapa Elementary school is located in Mililani in Central Oahu and is a gentrified area. However, there are still pockets of affordable housing in the "older" parts of Mililani. Kipapa Elementary School and the majority of our population is located in one of these regions.
Although there are different parts of Mililani, my students still have easy access to malls, superstores (e.g., Walmart, Target, etc.), grocery stores and restaurants, wide roads, and community centers that have pools, well-kept fields, and gyms. Since they are still young, their understanding of their island is still limited based on their locality. Many of them are not aware of the differences in the different areas on the island. I believe that it's important to connect my students' with another community and school on Oahu so that they can build their understanding of the different communities and the access that comes with living in specific neighborhoods. Additionally, they have the opportunity to connect with peers who can help them learn about the different parts of the island. By providing my students with access to peers that have a different experience due to their remote location, my students are building their understanding of their island community and also their ability to learn from others.
To create this exchange, I teamed up with a fellow Teach for America corps member who teaches at Waianae Elementary School located on the Leeward coast of Oahu and is considered a more remote area. I initiated the exchange with this teacher because I believe it is important to begin having conversations with my students about the differences in access to resources based on location. The teacher and I both decided to tie in Common Core writing standards and worked together to ensure that letters were delivered on time.
Lesson Plan: Access
The goal of the lesson was to build my students understanding of the world around them. As mentioned, many of them have not had the opportunity to leave Mililani and explore other communities due to their young age.
As their teacher, it is my responsibility to provide them with access to opportunities that support their understanding that there is more to experience beyond their community. Recognizing that there are other things and people outside of their town is an important concept to understand because students will begin to see that their are many different paths they can take besides the ones that they see in their community.
Pictured Above: The lesson plan above was for a writing lesson. During this lesson, students had the opportunity to learn about Waianae, a community outside of Mililani.
Lesson Materials
Pictured Above: PowerPoint presentation of Waianae.
Pictured Above: A letter from a Waianae Elementary student. Names were blocked out to respect student's privacy.
Pictured Above: A letter from a Waianae Elementary student. Names were blocked out to respect student's privacy.
Pictured Above: Our class created a graphic organizer of the information they learned about their Waianae pen pals.
To introduce my students to the idea of access and how access differs based on location, I took a verbal poll at the beginning of the lesson to see how many students knew about communities outside of Mililani. While some students were able to name places or specific locations (e.g., Target or the Waikiki beach), many were still unfamiliar with areas beyond Mililani. Therefore, it was vital that I presented them with a resource that would help build their understanding of the community of focus, Waianae. That resource was the PowerPoint seen above. I created the PowerPoint presentation with my fellow Teach for America colleague, and we decided on a PowerPoint because we were able to customize the content, so it fits our lesson. When we created it, we kept our students in mind, I teach kindergarten inclusion, and he is in a fully self-contained classroom. Thus, we did not want to oversaturate the PowerPoint with a lot of visuals or text so that it would remain developmentally and grade-level appropriate.
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The PowerPoint provided visual comparisons between the two communities which helped our students identify the differences and also the similarities in our respective areas. After the PowerPoint, I read student letters from our Waianae pen pals. As a class, we created a grade-level appropriate graphic organizer with the pictures we received of our new pen pals. Since my kindergarteners are still learning how to read, I drew pictures on our chart instead of writing words so that they could easily access the information. After we completed the graphic organizer, we talked about what they were going to write to their pen pals and what they could ask.
Student Letters
Pictured Above: Student writing samples.
Through the letter template I created, my students stated their name and explained how they felt through a happy or sad face coloring. Students utilized their knowledge of narrative writing (W.K.3) to share about a single event, what happened during the incident, and a reaction.
Students were also prompted to ask a question to their pen pal friends. It was important to have students ask questions because it pushes them to think about what they learned and consider how the daily events in their lives are similar or different based on their location. Lastly, I had students share their favorite "something" so that their pen pals could learn more about them.
Pictured to the Left: Students addressed and stamped their letters. Letters were delivered via interschool mail, so addresses were not necessary.
Student Reflections
Pictured Above: Students were provided sentence stems for their reflection writing piece.
Pictured Above: Student reflections on the lesson.
Although I hoped that students would write about what they learned about Waianae and the different opportunities students in Waianae have access to versus the opportunities students in Mililani have access to, student reflections focused on the information they learned about their new friends. While this wasn't what I initially imagined them to write about, their writing shows that they were able to learn something about other students who live in a different area on the island. Through debriefs with students, they were able to identify another community, Waianae, outside of Mililani. Their ability to speak about another place and the people who live there is crucial because they are beginning to build their understanding of areas, people, and opportunities outside of their immediate community.
Teacher Reflection
What sparked the idea of exchanging letters with their Waianae counterparts, is my students love for meeting new friends. This year we’ve had several students join at odd times of the year, and my students are beyond excited to meet these new friends and learn about them. Additionally, when my “teacher friend,” also known as my MTLD visits our classroom they are so excited to talk to her and learn more about her. Cuyler and I decided to team up because we teach in different parts of the island. I teach in Mililani and Cuyler teachers in Waianae. Although we are both at Title 1 schools on Oahu, our students experience different things based on their location. Like Cuyler’s students, the majority of my students are from low-income families. However, due to their neighborhood, my students have access to more resources than their Waianae counterparts. They have the privilege to go to different malls where there are events and learning opportunities and their parents have access to a variety of jobs that are in the area. By introducing my students to their new Waianae friends that live in a different part of the island, I’m hoping to present the idea of privilege and provide them an opportunity to reflect on their lives and identities.