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Viroqua Middle School is seeking volunteers to help with its sixth-grade Journal Buddies program this spring.
The purpose of the program is to engage students with members of the community in a reading and writing activity to create relationships. The program was launched in 2006.
Students will be paired with a community member and each will be given the same book. As they read the book, a traditional pen and paper journal or e-mails will be passed back and forth between the partners with entries about the book or related topics. There is to be no correcting of errors in the journal. This is a free writing assignment, not a published work. What is written is considered to be more important than how grammatically correct the journal entry is written.
The students will journal at school and the volunteers will read and journal at home. Journals will be dropped off and picked up at school or e-mails will be exchanged between partners.
Themes of books will include social issues such as bullying and friendship.
Volunteers will meet their journal buddies on Friday, March 28, from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. At that time the partners will determine the book they would like to read.
The partners will journal back and forth about the book for about five weeks.
The program will conclude with a celebration breakfast in the high school commons on Wednesday, April 30, at 8:15 a.m.
Mary Mulvaney-Kemp, district reading specialist, said so far 50 volunteers have signed up to participate; the goal is to have 87 volunteers, so every student could have his or her own journal partner.
Volunteers may expect to devote three to six hours to the project.
For more information, or to volunteer, community members may call Mulvaney-Kemp at 637-1124 or 637-1531.
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