Mentors read their mentees' Web pages and email them with feedback. Each week additional students become adopted by mentors. Some receive multiple mentors. As students become adopted and receive email feedback they become interested in polishing their writing. Students who previously saw no reason to write grammatically and in good style because they felt no one would read their writings carefully proofread their essays and ask for guidance from their teacher and from other students.
Students awaiting adoption look forward to being adopted and eventually all are.
Telementoring at Bergtraum began in 1995. The emphasis of the program is to show students that people are interested in reading their writings and that, therefore, there is reason to write well. Students use the Web to do research for their essays and to publish their essays on individual web pages. Mentors use the web to locate and read student essays, and email to give feedback to students. The satisfaction of writing for an audience persuaded him to use a variation of the same idea in high school teaching.