Area 1: Goals:

The goals of this community partnership program include the following:

1. Write for real life purposes and audiences - Writing is integrated throughout the program beginning with an introductory letter to a senior partner and culminating with a booklet incorporating various writing samples completed throughout the year. (NJCCCS 3.2)
2. Develop interviewing skills, clarify meanings, engage in meaningful discussions to identify and explore issues and problems - Students conduct interviews of their senior partners throughout the course of the school year during each monthly meeting. (NJCCCS 3.3)
3. Develop active listening and listening comprehension skills - Students develop listening and listening comprehension skills through their interactions with the senior partners. (NJCCCS 3.4);
4. Use technology to create published documents - Students utilize technology to "publish" their monthly writing pieces related to the program as well as putting together the booklet with writing samples for the culmination of the project. (NJCCCS 8.1)
5. Explain the cultural effects of advancements in technology - Students complete a computer related project with each senior partner on hobby day. (NJCCCS 8.2)
6. Explore historical events utilizing primary sources - Students create timelines of their senior partner's life and then interview their senior to gather information on the historical event from their partner's perspective. (NJCCCS 6.1)
7. Demonstrate appropriate character traits, social skills, and positive attitudes needed for interacting with members of the community. (NJCCCS 9.2).
   

Area 2: Activities:

Mountz Uniting Students, Seniors, and Teachers (MUSST) is a unique program designed to foster a relationship between senior citizens in the community and seventh grade students. Throughout the course of a school year, students meet with community senior partners to conduct interviews, discuss historical events, and share hobbies while simultaneously developing intergenerational friendships and understanding.

Once a month, junior and senior partners meet for an hour to discuss and participate in the assigned monthly activity. Two of these meetings, the hobby day workshop and the culminating activity, have an extended meeting time. Thirty-six seventh grade students and 30 senior citizens are involved in this project. Beginning with the initial meeting, each student is paired with a specific senior citizen based on an initial interest survey. These partners work together throughout the year. Students with unique educational needs have both a junior and senior partner. Each monthly meeting has a specific objective.

Language arts literacy skills are infused throughout the program. Prior to our first meeting, the students write a letter of introduction to their senior partner. During the first meeting, junior and senior partners conduct guided interviews. Based on these interviews, the students write a biographical sketch of their senior partner. Incorporating technology into the program, the students then create a historical timeline of their senior partner's life. After a discussion of historical events, the students create a memoir recording the oral history from this primary source of the historical event.

As junior and senior partners become more comfortable with each other, they are introduced to dialogue poems. After writing a dialogue poem together, the students utilize a word processing program to type the poems and insert a digital picture of themselves and their senior partner on the page.

On hobby day, the senior partners run hobby workshops for the students. Topiary, golf, music, crafts, photography, and travel have been among the topics presented by the seniors. In turn, the students give the seniors a computer lesson in the computer lab.

As a culminating project, there is a year-end luncheon where the seniors are presented with booklets containing the compiled writings of the students memorializing the project. Over the course of the project, the students and seniors invest over 15 hours each.

Area 3: Outside Resources:

: This program was first implemented during the 2003-2004 school year through a one-time grant from a corporate sponsor. During this current school year, a PTA mini-grant and a NJEA Pride in Public Education grant have funded the program. In addition to the seventh grade integrated language arts teachers serving as coordinators, Gil and Betty Robinson (community senior citizens) act as our liaisons and assist as recruiters for senior citizen participants. PTA parents coordinate refreshments for the meetings.

Area 4: Evaluation:

This program has been met with much enthusiasm from students, senior partners, teachers, parents, and administration alike. Students have developed friendships with the seniors, and both senior and junior partners look forward to the monthly meetings. The students have learned that their senior partners are a valuable community resource. The senior partners now see our school and the students in a more positive light.

During the first year of the program, senior support of our school dramatically increased. This was demonstrated by written editorials in the local newspaper supporting our school budget. Many of the original senior participants encouraged the coordinators to continue the program and actively sought out new senior citizen volunteers to participate in the current school year. The teachers have observed an increased enthusiasm towards writing assignments related to the senior partner project.

Area 5: Stability:

A corporate foundation provided a one-year grant for the first year of this program. Due to the huge success of the program and the enthusiasm of all participants, the coordinators sought and obtained additional funding to continue the program into its second year. It is expected that this funding will continue for future years.

Area 6: Endorsements:

Community senior citizens, students, teachers, parents, and administration all support the MUSST program.

The MUSST program has exceeded my expectations. Each month throughout the school year our seventh graders met with their senior partners. They talked, shared remembrances, and collaborated on writing projects. The writing was very purposeful and meaningful for the students and seniors alike. However, more than the focus on writing, it was the human dimension of the MUSST program that I consider to be MUSST's greatest success. The relationships that developed and learning that took place between our students and their senior partners, from their apprehensive first meeting to their emotional farewells at our year end luncheon, had an immeasurable impact on the lives of our seniors and seventh graders.

William S. Palmer, Superintendent/Principal

At our first MUSST meeting, I was curious to meet my senior partner. I didn't know what to think of the program in the beginning since I wasn't sure how writing, seventh graders, and senior citizens all fit together. My classmates and I soon discovered being able to talk to older people was a great privilege. We learned a lot about how we could teach seniors new things and how they could teach us as well. Being around seniors was very different from what I expected. It was actually a lot of fun. We were often surprised by how our views differed or how similar they were on certain issues. In fact, our differences made the program a lot more interesting.

K.T., Student

I don't have grandchildren, so the intergenerational experience is especially welcome. As "grandfriends" we are amazed and intrigued by things they know and do - and we don't - and by their interest and even astonishment at what we found interesting at their age. We leave one brief monthly meeting with smiles and wonder on both sides. We feel delighted and enriched and hope our very different views on "yesterday, today, and tomorrow" enrich them as much as it does our lives.

Betty Robinson, Senior Partner