My students need 4 copies each of 9 titles, from The Short and Incredibly Happy Life of Reilly to Big Al.
$574 goal
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
I teach a group of twenty-eight 5th graders in a suburban New York school. My students come from families with economic hardships, and reading new books is often happening only at school.
Since I believe reading and discussing high quality literature can be a way of engaging children in the discourse of participatory democracy, I am always on the look for titles that lead easily into thought provoking conversations about race, stereotyping, discrimination, power, and other issues that should be part of a curriculum that aims for educating the whole child.
However, with the current budget cuts that my school is facing, new books will not enter the classrooms that easy. Even if my school gets money to allocate for books, my administration is often required to order books from specific catalogs, and the titles that are available often do not provide the platform for deep conversation beyond what is happening in the story.
In addition, often my students do not see themselves, or the problems they are facing in their lives, represented in the literature that is available at my school. There aren't many books that have characters who are of a different physical ability, or live in non-traditional family settings.
The titles I am hoping to see my students read and discuss will allow them to grow as social activists. Through those titles, my students will grow as critical readers and will learn to question the "norms." They will read with critical lenses, analyzing stereotypes that we often take for granted. They will learn to question "Is this fair?" and "Who benefits from this?" They will learn to questions the "normalcy" of the world around them. They will learn to search for solutions to problems they have never thought of before. They will engage in the discourse of participatory democracy!
Your willingness to contribute to this proposal will enable my students to have access to books that will allow them to grow as social activists. The discourse of a classroom is a training ground for the future citizens of our country and I'd like to thank you an advance for making it possible for my students to have the access to literature that helps prepare the future of a democratic society.
DonorsChoose is the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Chrysostomou and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
