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Pen pal program helps motivate students to write

They've been corresponding since this summer and Thursday, they finally got to meet face to face.

Sixth graders at Brown Intermediate in South Bend met their pen pals, students from Bethel College.

They spent the day getting to know each another and working on math projects. The Bethel students are majoring in education. The sixth graders' teacher was trying to find a way to improve their writing skills when she came up with the idea. She says it really worked.

 Meredith Eaton, their 6th grade teacher at Brown Intermediate Center says, "Some kids who haven't been writing at all, all year, have been writing two, three, four page letters to their pen pals and so it's been a great motivator to get them to write."

Eaton says the Bethel students learned a lot about sixth graders and how they learn.  

Some of the college students say they've talked to their pen pals about things they wish they'd done differently when they were young, in hopes of steering them in the right direction.