My students need 60 copies of Cory Doctorow's "Little Brother" to use as a foundational text in order to explore how both digital literacy and rights impact our lives.
FULLY FUNDED! Mr. Kiess's classroom raised $921
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.
My Students
How often do you think children spend on the Internet or using digital devices? If they're anything like my students, you'd probably say all day and night. However, while students today constantly engage in digital media, they're often unaware of the role digital literacy plays in their lives.
If I've learned anything about students from my experiences teaching in the U.S.
and abroad, kids are kids everywhere. They're funny, energetic, inquisitive, and motivated, and my students are no different. They're passionate about their goals and very focused on achieving them. However, my students do have some challenges many students in the U.S. don't have when they grow up. To begin with, a large portion of my students come from homes where English is not the primary language. While being bilingual does provide students with an excellent and marketable skill set, over 80% of my students enter high school reading below grade level, and many need more support in developing their English language skills in order to graduate and be successful in college. This combined with the fact that 89% of students qualify for free lunch helps to show why many of our students need additional resources in order to be successful in school and achieve the goals they've set for their lives.
My Project
While my 9th grade English students continuously engage with the digital world, they often do so uncritically with very little knowledge of their rights as users, architects, and consumers of digital media. Because the digital world and the laws governing its use and production are constantly evolving, it is important for students today to become educated on a media that largely impacts every facet of their lives. By exploring these themes in Cory Doctorow's "Little Brother", my students will gain a better insight into how digital media impacts their lives and the rights they have as producers and consumers of the digital world. Furthermore, students will apply the knowledge that they have gained in order to explore the different positions of experts in this field and debate their own opinions regarding these issues in class by writing persuasive essays, participating in discussion, and conducting a classroom trial based on the events and characters in the book.
By providing the funding necessary to purchase two classroom sets of "Little Brother", my students will not only gain a better understanding of their rights as digital citizens but also offer them the opportunity to build and improve both their reading and writing skills in an engaging context which will ultimately serve to improve their performance in the classroom in the present and also help to encourage them to become life-long learners in the future.
Nearly all students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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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 Mr. Kiess and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
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