Writer's Workshop: Motivating Students with Technology
My students need 20 netbooks to research topics, save and revise their writing, and to continue publishing our school's weekly newsletter.
$8,003 goal
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Hooray! 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.
When was the last time you had to write out a full page of text by hand? It's demotivating to students when they are faced with this task, especially with the amount of revising that has to take place when learning to be an effective writer.
The majority of the 90 eighth grade students at my Title I school in Arizona come to my classroom with below average literacy skills, as 98% of the students in my district are second language learners.
The respectfulness and enthusiasm my students have for learning makes teaching them a calling, not a job. They learn quickly, but they have so much catching up to do since they started their school careers from behind. They are still held accountable to meet the same academic standards as their peers who come from communities with the advantages of technology resources and English-speaking models. And with the new Common Core standards, the rigor of 8th grade will be even higher. My students will be expected to 'Read like detectives and write like reporters.'
My Project
Teaching for 12 years at this school, last year was the first year I had the availability of a laptop cart for my students. With the help of this technology, writing instruction and learning in my classroom improved greatly. In addition to researching topics and writing essays for class, my students also published our school's weekly newsletter, which required them to interview students and staff about events on campus and then write and revise their articles.
This laptop cart is the only one available at my K-8 school for over 800 students. My students started out the school year putting these laptops to use on a daily basis for instruction in reading and writing, as well as publishing our newsletter.
Now that more teachers are recognizing the value of using tools like laptops during their instruction, I have to share. They are now less and less available. Having to share them is affecting the amount of time my students have for researching, writing, and revising.
With so much catching up to do, my eighth grade students need the daily instruction and practice with 'reading like detectives and writing like reporters'.
Having a class set of net books will allow my students every year to pursue these skills uninterrupted.
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 Mr. Coughenour and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
