In her book, "Operation Beautiful: Transforming The Way You See Yourself One Post-it Note At a Time" Caitlin Boyle's mission is to encourage people to post positive anonymous notes in public places for others to find. This made my students wonder, "What would happen if we did this in our school?"
Please help empower my amazing group of twenty-one creative writing students!
They would love to collaborate with ABC Family's "Bright Students, Big Ideas" double-your-impact offer.
Our school is located in a rural area in Michigan. We are a high poverty school district with over 60 percent of the students eligible for free and reduced priced lunch. Many of our students receive Special Education services. We have a high number of transient students because a part of our district was converted to low-income housing when an Air Force base closed. Due to a steady loss of students (over 250 in five years)and major decreases in state aid, our district has cut over $1.1 million in expenditures from our general fund budget in three years. We are expected to cut another $1.8 million. Despite the challenges, however, we teachers continue to support our students and to educate them to the best of our oblatory school ranked fourth in the Upper Peninsula for College Readiness based on ACT Scores.
My Project
I have requested a digital camera & DVDs to document our project & create digital stories, 15 packs of self-stick notes, 6 marker/pen sets, 3 sticker sets, 5 quote books,& a Keurig coffee machine and coffee packs for early morning work sessions.
Using the power of voice my 21 writers will help Boyle accomplish the Operation Beautiful mission by encouraging their peers to end negative self-talk. We will leave messages on lockers, bathroom mirrors and stalls, halls, office spaces,cafeteria,locker-rooms,and the classes of our HS and MS building.
We will create anonymous messages to post before and after school. The students will document the project in their journals, record images with a camera, & create digital stories that will be blogged online and shared with author Caitlin Boyle.
Last year our hs and ms participated in "Challenge Day," a program created to stop bullying and encourage students to "Be the Change." This project would help us keep the Challenge Day spirit alive.
I am always looking for ways to empower my students and help them find ways to create, communicate, publish and find their voices.
My creative writing students are gifted with words and often use the digital landscape to share messages with the world. This project will allow them to touch lives with their wisdom and the post-it notes in our building will only be the beginning. Since they will be creating digital stories they will also share the images they create via online spaces. Thank you!
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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. Waldo and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.