This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
My Students
When a kindergarten student first enters school and the teacher asks, "Do you like to read?" 95% of the students say, "Yes!" As students grow up, that percentage drops. This year, when I asked my high school students that same question, only 20% of students said that they like to read sometimes.
I work at an inner city high school where most of my students grew up in poverty.
As a result, many of them owe fines at the library that they can't afford to pay off. As a result, they stop reading. Then, teachers shove literacy activities down their throats in an effort to force them to read better.
What people don't realize is that these students will read if you put a good book in their hands. Then, once they have a book they enjoy reading, they tell others about that book and a small but effective literacy movement has begun.
My Project
I'm requesting books to help start a classroom library. Since my classes are composed of 95% minority students, they need access to books that have African American protagonists in them. Most of my female students have read either a Drama High or a Bluford High book before. By making these books easily accessible to students, they are more likely to read on their own for pleasure.
In my class we have "Free Reading Friday," where student have 40 minutes of class time to just read. Then, they compose a short reflection on their reading. The reflection isn't long because when I read for fun I don't want to write long journals when I pause.
By providing these novels, when students like a book, I can easily provide them a different book that I know they will like just as much because it fits in the same genre.
As readers, we don't understand why people would not want to read.
If you hadn't been given anything fun to read in a long time, you'd feel this way too. I want to provide books that are fun to read so that students can generate a love of learning again. Your generous donation can help to bring this love back to these students and hopefully create lifelong readers, but at the very least provide students with a book that could possibly be the best book they have read in years.
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 Mrs. D. and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.