You're on track to get doubled donations (and unlock a reward for the colleague who referred you). Keep up the great work!
Take credit for your charitable giving! Check out your tax receipts
To use your $50 gift card credits, find a project to fund and we'll automatically apply your credits at checkout. Find a classroom project
Skip to main content

Help teachers & students in your hometown this season!
Use code HOME at checkout and your donation will be matched up to $100.

Your school email address was successfully verified.

Ms. P. from CA is requesting books through DonorsChoose, the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.

Are You my Mother?

My project needs 15 copies of Alex Haley's book, "Roots."

  • $336 goal

Hooray! This project is fully funded

Hooray! This project is fully funded

Hello! I teach two sections, consisting wholly of Special Education students, of ninth grade Sociology. Because California only requires three years of high school social studies, this Sociology class is sort-of a, catch-all to help prepare freshmen to excel in the rest of their high school careers; emphasizing literacy, study skills, learning methods, and organizational skills. Therefore, it's not technically a "Sociology" class -- it's more like literacy, Ethnic Studies, life skills, and human geography classes all rolled into one excellent package. I work at Skyline High School, which is a school of about 2200 students in the VERY high-needs Oakland Unified School District in Oakland, California. A significant number of students at this school receive free and reduced-priced lunches, and although the school physically is located in one of the wealthiest areas of Oakland, most of the students who attend it bus in from all over the city. In addition to this urban poverty and its associated detriments to my students' education, each and every one of my students has been identified as a student who requires Special Education services. Some of my students are more motivated or organized than others, but all of them benefit greatly from more tactile learning methods. So far this year, I have emphasized active reading, employing the strategies of "Passage Mapping" and "Talking to the Text," which require students to write on their texts to engage the material. I would like to push my students this year and use the novel "Roots" as a platform from which the students will work on a family genealogy research project, as well as a way to bring to life both human geography and ethnic studies: human geography, by detailing foreign lands and migration patterns, and ethnic studies, by chronicling fictionalized accounts of a minority American family through the generations. I would love for my students to each have their own copies of this book, not only because I believe it is an incredibly valuable piece of American literature that would be great for their personal libraries, but, more importantly, because they have benefited immensely from physically engaging with their texts so far this year. I strongly believe that they will have a much easier time learning this material and will learn much more from it if they are able to write on their texts, whether it's writing margin notes, circling unknown vocabulary, or asking themselves questions about the reading. This tactile engagement is especially important for my special education students, because learning the material in a variety of ways helps reach them in ways that their various disabilities might otherwise hamper. Please consider funding this project. Doing so would give my students an opportunity to not only claim ownership of a valuable scholastic item (which so many of them have never really been able to do), but, more importantly, would dramatically enhance their abilities to comprehend and analyze this important work of American literature and provide a great stepping stone to discussing other Social Studies issues. Thank you so much for your consideration! Have a great day! =]

Ms. P.
Grades 9-12

Boost your odds

Add a profile photo in addition to your classroom photo. If you add a photo, it'll show up right here on your project page.

You are more likely to receive funding if you put a face to your name.

Upload a photo

Top rated for efficiency and transparency.

You donate directly to the teacher or project you care about and see where every dollar you give goes.

Expand the "Where your donation goes" section below to see exactly what Ms. P. is requesting.

See our finances

TEACHERS, FEELING INSPIRED?

You can start a project with the same resources being requested here!

Where Your Donation Goes

Materials Cost Quantity Total
Roots: The 30th Anniversary Edition Alex Haley, Michael Eric Dyson (Introduction) • Barnes and Noble $14.35 15 $215.25

Materials cost

$215.25

Vendor shipping charges

$21.53

Sales tax

$15.61

3rd party payment processing fee

$5.38

Fulfillment labor & materials

$17.00

Total project cost

$275.00

Suggested donation to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

$60.37

Total project goal

$335.37

How we calculate what's needed

Total project goal

$335.37

3 Donors

-$0.00

Donations toward project cost

-$0.00

Donations to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

-$0.00

Still needed View calculationHide calculation

$335.37

Our team works hard to negotiate the best pricing and selections available.

View complete list Show less

Support a teacher
near you!

Explore a map with requests from teachers across the country.

View map of requests

Project Activity

{"pmaHash":"","schoolCity":"Oakland","showProjectRecommendations":true,"teachersOnPage":[113770],"isTeacherViewingTheirOwnProject":false,"hideTeacherDetails":true,"schoolState":"CA","teacherPossessivePronoun":"her","PMsManager":null,"schoolGradeType":{"id":4,"name":"High School"},"TeacherPMForms":{},"proposalId":109340,"proposalMessageFormModel":null,"numActiveProjects":0,"completingDonationAmount":336,"teacherHasClassroomPhoto":false,"proposalURL":"https://www.donorschoose.org/project/are-you-my-mother/109340/","verifyShowPhotos":"","eligibleToBeCopied":false,"mayHaveReplacements":false,"numStudents":15,"teacherScreenName":"Ms. P.","isEquityFocus":true,"authorIds":{"113770":{"owner":"Ms. P.","donationSalutations":{}}},"displayedPercentFunded":0.0,"proposalsOnPage":[109340],"proposalHash":"1258656768","isApplePayMobileOnly":true,"progressBarPercentage":100.00,"pmaId":"","teacherProfilePhotoURL":"https://cdn.donorschoose.net/images/placeholder-avatars/136/teacher-placeholder-1_136.png","teacherHasProfilePhoto":false,"currentWorkflowStatusCode":13,"teacherChallengeId":85292,"photosPublished":false,"queryString":"","DonorPMForm":null,"isApplePayEnabled":true,"fundedByTarget":false,"activeProject":null,"donorIdsForImpactPhotoCheck":[],"teacherId":113770,"schoolCounty":"Alameda","fullyFunded":true,"isStudentLed":false,"isExpired":true,"schoolStateObj":{"code":"CA","name":"California"}}