Our annual district-wide String Fest field trip and concert is done for another year! Instead of having students write up a reflection sheet to share their thoughts about their experience, this year elementary orchestra students wrote letters to the middle and high school orchestra students. They answered essentially the same questions I would have asked them anyway, but this way they were able to communicate with students they performed alongside last week. We took a large chunk of time during full orchestra to write letters, and I graded them based on how many questions were responded to in the letter. Next, I sent them to our middle and high school teachers to distribute to their students. Students really got into this writing assignment because they knew they were writing to real people--some even addressed their letter to an older sibling or neighbor in orchestra :)
Elementary students were super excited when they came to full orchestra a later week and found handwritten letters to each of them on their stands! The high school orchestra members had taken a letter, written a response, and then stapled the two together so it was easy to return to the correct elementary musician. The response letters were so positive and encouraging; it was so nice to read through them! What a great way to make connections between the different grade levels and schools in our orchestra community!
Update: I've added a second letter template with sentence starters to make it easier for those students who need the support. I print the letters double-sided, and students can choose which side they write theirs on. I've also started marking in the top right corner the student's school and grade level because each middle/high school receives letters from two elementary schools. This way it is easier to sort and send the letters back to the correct elementary school :)
.png "String Fest concert reflection letter")
.png "String Fest concert reflection letter")
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