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This teacher needs your help!

Mrs. McGillem from Oakland City, IN is requesting books through DonorsChoose, the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.

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Fully Funded

Mrs. McGillem's classroom raised $497

Confronting Racism Through Literature

My students need 15 copies of each of 4 book titles: Jubilee, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Uncle Tom's Children.

Classroom photo
Mrs. McGillem Waldo J. Wood Memorial Middle School
Oakland City, IN Grades 9-12

My Students

Literature has the power to inspire us to change the world, and it is this power that I want to harness with my high school English classes. With your help, I can inspire them to be the change that they want to see in the world!

I teach junior high language arts and high school English, and students in my junior high classes do an extensive, in-depth unit examining prejudice and intolerance.

By the time I get those same students back as freshmen, they are ready for more challenging literature to extend that theme, and right now, I have nothing to offer them. My students and I live in a small, rural community in Indiana, and our small public school is 98%+ white, so lessons in diversity do not occur naturally. In junior high, so much progress is made to building compassion and empathy with these students, and I know that if I had quality literature to offer them as high school students, that progress would continue. These young adults walk in my room with the insatiable curiosity of children and the questioning and self-examination of adolescents. They want to discover who they are, what they believe, and how that fits with the rest of the world. With your help, I can guide them in the right direction.

My Project

I have selected four titles to use with my high schoolers, Jubilee, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Uncle Tom's Children. These will be used as the foundation of a literature study on the historical realities of racism. Two of the titles, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and Uncle Tom's Cabin, will be mandatory reading as a class, and students will choose at least one of the other titles to read independently. We use literature circles to give students authentic experiences as "real-world readers." They work in small groups to set progress goals for the reading, then meet one to two times a week to discuss what they have read. For their discussions, they question, predict, make connections, visualize, use background knowledge, and create inferences, and these tools drive some powerful discussions! These titles are a natural build on the titles they already have in their readers' repertoire in both difficulty of text and maturity.

I desperately need to be able to offer these titles.

There are no titles available to them now that deal with intolerance. Many of the titles that I have researched as potential selections are either written at a level that would be less-than-challenging or don't weave a story and characters that students will connect with on an emotional level. The fact that these offer so many personal, non-fictional accounts make them even more compelling. Please help me challenge racism with literature!

This project will directly impact historically underfunded classrooms.

More than half of students from low‑income households

30 students impacted 2 donors
Mrs. McGillem Waldo J. Wood Memorial Middle School Grades 9-12

This project will directly impact historically underfunded classrooms.

Oakland City, IN View local requests

More than half of 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

30 students impacted 2donors

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Where Your Donation Goes

Where your donation goes
Materials Cost Quantity Total
Jubilee Margaret Walker • AKJ Books $8.10 15 $121.50
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (Dover) • AKJ Books $1.11 15 $16.65
Uncle Tom''s Cabin (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Harriet B • AKJ Books $5.88 15 $88.20
Uncle Tom''s Children • AKJ Books $10.35 15 $155.25

Materials cost

$381.60

Vendor shipping charges

 FREE

Sales tax

 $0.00

3rd party payment processing fee

$5.72

Fulfillment labor & materials

$35.00

Total project cost

$422.32

Suggested donation to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

$74.53

Total project goal

$496.85

How we calculate what's needed

Total project goal

 $496.85

1 Donor

-$248.43

Donations toward project cost

-$211.17

Donations to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

-$37.26

match offer

-$248.41

Match offer toward project cost

-$211.15

Match offer to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

-$37.26

Excluded support for DonorsChoose

-$0.01

Still needed View calculationHide calculation

 $0.00

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

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Project Activity

Project Activity
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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 Mrs. McGillem and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.

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