Dijital Çağda Z Kuşağı Alfa Kuşağına Mektup Yazıyor

The aim of this study is to enable two generations who have no experience of correspondence to exchange letters. The study included ten 3rd grade primary school students (5 female and 5 male) and 14 university students (11 female and 3 male). With this study, children and university students who have never written, sent or received a letter in their lives were provided with this experience. It is aimed for students and prospective teachers to establish a social relationship by expressing themselves in writing. The students who would participate in the study were asked to briefly introduce themselves by their teachers and the children introduced themselves in a few sentences. The researcher read the characteristics of the children to the pre-service teachers and the pre-service teachers themselves chose the children to write letters to. In this study, case study, one of the qualitative research designs, was adopted. The pre-service teachers were asked to write reflective evaluations about their penfriend experiences. Students' letters and pre-service teachers' reflective evaluations were analyzed through content analysis. The pre-service teachers stated that they enjoyed the process of putting their feelings and thoughts in writing, placing what they wrote in an envelope and sending it to the post, and waiting for a response to what they wrote for days or even weeks, despite having all the communication possibilities of the digital world. When we look at the content of students' and pre-service teachers' letters, it is seen that students mostly wrote about school/course, where they live and their families, while pre-service teachers wrote about hobbies, school/education and things they like. The main themes that emerged in the students' letters were the place they lived, their family members, and the profession they wanted to choose. This study has shown that letter writing is an alternative and effective form of communication for today's digital native children and youth to share information, feelings and thoughts.