Who Are Web Pals?

Web pals are partners in understanding the writing process. An adult mentor is paired with a high school student and the two correspond through email. Web pals partnership exists for a brief period, generally over the course of several months, a semester, or in some cases, a school year. Students from Sheboygan Falls High School have published their work on their web pages. The web pals engage in conversations about the writing they find there:

• What they like/don't like, in general
• What could make a piece of writing stronger (in ideas, word choice, organization, conventions, sentence fluency, voice, and presentation: the Six+1 Traits of Writing)
• How the writing is presented on the web, whether or not it is easy for the reader to see and follow is another good thing to talk about

The Process

The first email from adult telementor should

• Introduce the adult web pal to the high school student
• Explain about his/her experience (briefly: remember my students are 9^th graders)
• Say something to my student about his/her web page as a way of breaking the ice and opening conversation. Perhaps even asking a question would be good.
• Invite a prompt reply.

The first email from my student should

• Introduce him/her to the adult web pal
• Give his/her experience (what other interests, activities, etc. he/she is involved in)
• Respond to the comment/question about the web page.
• Show a willingness to continue the correspondence.

From then on, I think the direction of the conversation can be about any or all of the following:

• Writing content, using the language of six traits.
• Writing process, focusing on revision strategies
• Web page design, construction of, benefits of, problems with
• Hypertext: writing on the web, how hyperlinks change writing for writer and for reader
• Ideas in general (from poems or whatever source)

Email Etiquette (netiquette)

There are some "rules of engagement" for email that have become commonly accepted. There is also a sort of web language that has evolved from email and chat rooms that most people have integrated into their everyday usage. But emoticons and one liners aside, email is still a person to person, human interaction. We can never forget that and we must respect that there is a real person across the fiber optics whose fingers click away on their keyboard. For our purposes, any conversation that is not acceptable in public is not acceptable here. Read more about netiquette.

The Beginning

It was Ted Nellen's Murray Bergtraum students who first introduced me to the idea of telementors. As one of his scholars explained to me how she had been corresponding with a professor in Milwaukee and the about the kinds of things they "talked" about, I thought the experience of using email for mentoring was a fabulous idea. So, of course, I knew I had to try it with my Cyber English students.

My first experience in pairing adult telementors with my CyberEnglish9 students began February of 2003. I worked with Angelo Bonadonna from Xavier University. He and I paired our students and set the structure for the process. I thought it would be beneficial to post a few of the documents that we generated the first time through to help us when we do this again. Our correspondence may also help other teachers who want to give telementoring a try.

• My letter to Angelo
• My email to my own students before the project began
• My email to the list in general regarding the sense of success I felt
• Angelo's response to my email

Becoming a Web Pal

Currently, Sheboygan Falls students are pairing up with adult mentors from Colorado State University and Texas Tech University.  If you are interested in this project, please send an email.

Good candidates for adult mentors:

• retired teachers
• current teachers
• retired people of any profession who are interested in helping kids
• college students learning to become teachers
• community members who want to help