You're on track to get doubled donations (and unlock a reward for the colleague who referred you). Keep up the great work!
Take credit for your charitable giving! Check out your tax receipts
To use your $50 gift card credits, find a project to fund and we'll automatically apply your credits at checkout. Find a classroom project
Skip to main content

Help teachers & students in your hometown this season!
Use code HOME at checkout and your donation will be matched up to $100.

Your school email address was successfully verified.

Mr. Weller’s Classroom Edit display name

  • Mead Middle School
  • Wichita, KS
  • More than three‑quarters of students from low‑income households

Support his classroom with a gift that fosters learning.

  • Monthly
  • One-time

We'll charge your card today and send Mr. Weller a DonorsChoose gift card he can use on his classroom projects. Starting next month, we'll charge your card and send him a DonorsChoose gift card on the 17th of every month.

Edit or cancel anytime.

cancel

Support Mr. Weller's classroom with a gift that fosters learning.

  • Monthly
  • One-time

We'll charge your card today and send Mr. Weller a DonorsChoose gift card he can use on his classroom projects. Starting next month, we'll charge your card and send him a DonorsChoose gift card on the 17th of every month.

Edit or cancel anytime.

Make a donation Mr. Weller can use on his next classroom project.

https://www.donorschoose.org/classroom/6148994 Customize URL

I teach three periods of 6th Grade Honors English, and at the beginning of the year, I ask all of my students ten questions about their reading lives. I call the questionnaire "The Afterlife of Reading." It is designed to determine the extent to which students have a reading life outside of school. Sadly, they don't seem to have much of one, and so the goal of my project is simple: to encourage students to develop a reading life of their own. Every year, I read Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" with my honors students, and for the most part, they love it. Nevertheless, the difficulty of Dickens’ prose poses an obvious impediment to their complete immersion, and it is necessary for me to read it with them in class in order to orchestrate a musical and meaningful experience. All this is to say that it's unreasonable to ask 6th graders to read “A Christmas Carol” on their own. And then last year, something novel happened. My school hosted its first Scholastic Book Fair in over a decade, thanks to the unflagging efforts of the new librarian. As I made small talk with her, my eyes drifted like slow globes orbiting an invisible mass, and I was arrested by the ghostly flash of that favorite word of mine: “The Afterlife of Holly Chase,” by Cynthia Hand. I bought it, read it and knew immediately that each of my students needed a copy that they could check-out from me and take home to read. I want all of my students to have a copy of this modern fairy-tale to take home and weigh against the classic in the privacy of their rooms, in the same patient, mental space where we sometimes dream of loved ones lost: the afterlife of reading.

About my class

I teach three periods of 6th Grade Honors English, and at the beginning of the year, I ask all of my students ten questions about their reading lives. I call the questionnaire "The Afterlife of Reading." It is designed to determine the extent to which students have a reading life outside of school. Sadly, they don't seem to have much of one, and so the goal of my project is simple: to encourage students to develop a reading life of their own. Every year, I read Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" with my honors students, and for the most part, they love it. Nevertheless, the difficulty of Dickens’ prose poses an obvious impediment to their complete immersion, and it is necessary for me to read it with them in class in order to orchestrate a musical and meaningful experience. All this is to say that it's unreasonable to ask 6th graders to read “A Christmas Carol” on their own. And then last year, something novel happened. My school hosted its first Scholastic Book Fair in over a decade, thanks to the unflagging efforts of the new librarian. As I made small talk with her, my eyes drifted like slow globes orbiting an invisible mass, and I was arrested by the ghostly flash of that favorite word of mine: “The Afterlife of Holly Chase,” by Cynthia Hand. I bought it, read it and knew immediately that each of my students needed a copy that they could check-out from me and take home to read. I want all of my students to have a copy of this modern fairy-tale to take home and weigh against the classic in the privacy of their rooms, in the same patient, mental space where we sometimes dream of loved ones lost: the afterlife of reading.

Read more

About my class

Read more
{"followTeacherId":6148994,"teacherId":6148994,"teacherName":"Mr. Weller","teacherProfilePhotoURL":"https://cdn.donorschoose.net/images/placeholder-avatars/136/teacher-placeholder-3_136.png","teacherHasProfilePhoto":false,"vanityURL":"","teacherChallengeId":21331244,"followAbout":"Mr. Weller's projects","teacherVerify":512479722,"teacherNameEncoded":"Mr. Weller","vanityType":"teacher","teacherPageInfo":{"teacherHasClassroomPhoto":true,"teacherHasClassroomDescription":true,"teacherClassroomDescription":"","teacherProfileURL":"https://www.donorschoose.org/classroom/6148994","tafURL":"https://secure.donorschoose.org/donors/share_teacher_profile.html?teacher=6148994","stats":{"numActiveProjects":0,"numFundedProjects":1,"numSupporters":12},"classroomPhotoPendingScreening":false,"showEssentialsListCard":false}}