While most service-learning courses at the college level establish a hierarchical connection between mentor and student, the service-learning program at Los Angeles City College encourages a reciprocal relationship in which mentor and mentee benefit from each other. First-year composition students are paired with intermediate ESL composition students in a semester-long program. It was found that both mentors and mentees experienced growth in terms of both skills and the increased confidence with which they demonstrated those skills. As they worked to help their mentees strengthen their basic skills, the mentors became more aware of the need to tend to the details of their own writing, and both English and ESL students began to see writing as a developmental process. The result was that both sets of students learned to and became more willing to scrutinize their own work more carefully and to make the corrections necessary in order to present a more polished product. [Note: Title on this record varies from title shown on the organization's web site table of contents.] (Contains 3 notes.)