Harvey Daniels’s article on exchanging weekly letters with his students really resonated with me.  Although the concept of reading and writing letters to 50 – 100 students is daunting, I was able to imagine myself undertaking this task even before I had finished reading the article. As I work towards my teaching certification, I frequently encounter new concerns about engaging my future students, but it is not often that I read about a strategy that I immediately want to try. Because my educational background and funds of knowledge derive from a white upper-middle class upbringing and private schools, one of my primary concerns as a future teacher is that I will not be able to connect with students from a variety of different backgrounds. The idea of forging bounds through writing letters seems like a viable solution to this concern because I can connect with my students by demonstrating genuine and sustained interest in their lives rather than through superficial similarities that may not exist.

As put forth by Daniels, other positive outcomes of this student-teacher correspondence are it “allows the teacher to model good writing, to create a just-right text for each child to read, [and] to see and assess each student’s writing skills” (Daniels 128). I imagine myself as a teacher being a stickler for grammar, so I see these letters as an opportunity to demonstrate proper grammar and punctuation while not having to edit the students writing. I also appreciated Daniels’s advice to “write informally” and allow students to see crossed out and misspelled words. I think that allowing the student to see the teacher’s thought process makes the teacher seem more human and less like a knowledge dispenser.

The final aspect of Daniels’s article that I appreciated was the strategies for giving students both positive and critical feedback within the letters. He makes the point that when students receive feedback in this private manner, “it is less likely the kid will react defensively or feel a need to act defiant in front of peers” (Daniels 140).  This also allows the student to reflect on his or her behavior and devise a strategy for improvement. In this way, the teacher gives a student agency over his or her classroom conduct; an individual’s behavior can consequently improve as a result of his or her own choices, not the reprimands of the teacher. I realize that implementing this program on a large scale may overwhelm teachers, but I definitely want to try it when I teach because I think that the rewarding relationships that emerge from these letters far exceeds the effort.