Service Learning Project - Middle School Advice Letters to Fifth Graders

Enrichment Period (1:06-1:45), Mar. 30-Apr. 16, 2021

I feel that we often throw around the term “service learning,” largely because we often

find ourselves required to complete a service learning project at multiple levels of our schools

careers. However, there is not often a lot of thought put into what service learning actually means

at its core.

According to a group of faculty members at Suffolk University, service learning is “a

pedagogy integrating academically relevant service activities that address human and community

needs into a course. Students connect knowledge and theory to practice by combining service

with reflection in a structured learning environment” (What is service learning?).

In short, service learning is about someone using an experience in which they serve

others to, in fact, help themselves learn through the opportunity. Suffolk University outlines four

methods of service learning: direct service, indirect service, research-based service, and

advocacy-based service (What is service learning?).

In direct service, the students engage directly with the people they are serving. I find this

to be the most powerful form of service learning because of the face-to-face interactions it

provides, but unfortunately, Covid-19 has made this a difficult form to continue at the moment.

In indirect service, students fulfill a community need and provide a service in a way in which

they do not directly interact with the people they are serving. This is the method that I used for

this service learning project. In research-based service, students provide a service by assisting in

research that would help a certain portion of the community, while in advocacy-based service,

students work to educate members of the community on a topic which is highlighted by a

community partner as being an important issue (What is service learning?).

 Due to Covid-19 restrictions, it was tricky to find a project that would be interesting

enough to engage the students while also working with them on 8th grade ELA state standards.

Ultimately, I decided upon having the students in our enrichment class write letters to the current

fifth grade students, giving them advice for their transition into middle school.

This project served several purposes. For my students in the enrichment period, it both

allowed them to compose informative letters, learning what to include and how to properly

format their writing. Especially since Covid-19 slowed down many lessons and units this year

even before teachers had to play catch-up on standards, it was beneficial for the students to get to

write from an informative perspective, rather than simply doing narrative or persuasive writing

(as they have done up to this point).

I broke instruction and the writing process down into several, more manageable chunks.

On the first day, I explained the project concept to them, and also showed them a couple

examples of what an informative letter looks like. The second day was when the students

planned out what their four pieces of advice would be to the fifth graders, and then built their

introduction around that. Over the next few days, the students completed their body paragraphs

and their conclusion. Once the main portions of the letter were written, we revisited the

informative letters we saw before and focused on properly formatting the letters so they looked

uniform and official.

The students also benefited in a way unforeseen when planning the project. In the initial

days of letter writing, while brainstorming ideas, the students often gravitated toward the

negative parts of middle school: the drama, particularly disliked teachers, and the rest. However,

by the time they finished writing their letters, many of their pieces of advice to the younger

students were written in a positive light: the possibility for advanced classes if the fifth graders
excelled, the benefits of having classrooms with doors and walls, and the variety of activities that

become available.

The fifth grade students are excited to read the letters once PSSAs come to a close. Even

in a normal school year, moving from elementary to middle school is a daunting transition, one

that I feel is made even more challenging by the open concept of the classrooms in the

elementary school. With the uncertainty wrought by Covid-19 this year, nerves are at an all-time

high for the students coming to the middle school next year. The letters from the eighth grade

students are reassuring in tone, and provide information on a wide variety of topics, including

navigating the building, what supplies are needed to be considered “prepared” when entering a

class, and even hygiene tips as they enter puberty.

While students being quarantined and PSSAs made it difficult to expand the project past

the initial letter-writing process, I have made arrangements with my cooperating teacher, Sam

Dawson, and the two fifth grade ELA teachers, Melissa Pfeifer and Matt Circle, for the fifth

grade students to type up questions they may have after reading the letters. This would give the

eighth grade students an opportunity to respond to these questions, either through writing or (if

schedules manage to align) through a Zoom call between the groups.

I think this project was a success. The eighth graders did provide some resistance to the

idea at the beginning, but I suspect that was because the enrichment block is not often used by

their teachers for actual enrichment opportunities, so they have become used to not doing work

during that time. If I were to incorporate this activity into my curriculum in the future, I think it

would be more well received. I also think they wanted to make sure it was not simple busywork,

and that if they were going to put effort into their letters that the letters would be read and

appreciated by the fifth grade students. This is why I think getting a response with questions
from the fifth graders will be a valuable continuation of their service learning project, as it will

allow them to view the true, positive impact their letters left.

If I were to adjust this project in any way (aside from the aforementioned inclusion in the

curriculum), I think I would put a much heavier emphasis on the planning stage. Due to

quarantine issues, we only spent a day or two fleshing out the students’ ideas before they started

writing, and while the advanced students handled that pace just fine, the other students struggled

to keep up, and it put them behind for the rest of the project. I envisioned the project as being

very writing-heavy, since that is what the standards cover, but the ideas that went into them

needed some more nurturing before the project truly began. However, I still consider the project

an overall success.
 Works Cited

What is service-learning? (n.d.). Retrieved March 15, 2021, from

https://www.suffolk.edu/student-life/student-involvement/community-public-service/serv

ice-learning/what-is-service-learning