Ms. Werenko’s period 5 and 7 writing classes Skyped with Senator Chris Murphy on Wednesday, May 13th. Students did research in February on the topic of veterans with PTSD and how dogs can help. After visiting Senator Murphy’s website and learning about his concern for vets, we realized that Senator Murphy could be our audience. Then all students wrote letters to Senator Murphy, we voted on which paragraphs were the best, and then we compiled the winning paragraphs into a “class letter”.

At the beginning of May, Senator Murphy’s office contacted Ms. Werenko requesting a Skype session. During our discussion, Kevin Miller, Brian Perzhilla, and Carly Fraser asked questions about how he could help support our idea of helping veterans and shelter dogs by pairing them up. The senator shared the current work he does to help veterans with injuries and took our new idea into consideration.

Then Devin Browne, Justin Swanson, and Brian Perzhilla asked questions related to being a senator and how he spends his free time. We learned that he loves his job because it is always changing and he is learning new things and helping people too. He is a Red Sox fan. We even learned that he plays on a baseball league made up of Democrats on one team and Republicans on the other. He admitted that their baseball skills are terrible though. It was interesting to learn that Senator Murphy would not want to be president. He explained that he would not want his life to change into one that would make it difficult to go out to restaurants and little league games the way he is able to now.

Senator Murphy ended our Skype session by asking the students to do further research on this topic and other topics that may be of individual interest. He also told the class that he will be pushing the VA study about vets and service dogs so it is concluded in a timely manner and then the data can be reviewed. He even told us that we made him aware of this new idea to use shelter dogs instead of highly trained service dogs and that he will do research on it and get back to us.

Overall, this was an exciting and fun experience for student s and teachers. It supports the lesson that anyone is capable of making a change in the world by using research and writing to do so.