My students are brilliant, lovely, audacious, and some of the bravest people I know. Our school exists for students who have difficulty in traditional public schools. They need hands-on help, small classrooms, and lots of encouragement, and that is what our school provides for them.
My students have some of the most vivid, tragic, heroic life stories I have ever heard. They also have difficulty connecting to texts that relate life stories of middle class suburbia that are so common to traditional high school curriculum. This makes the teaching of text to self connections and text to text connections difficult. This skill is essential for their continuing education. Colleges depend on those skills in even the most basic of classes. I would like to present them with a novel they can relate to and the opportunity to create their own autobiographies to share.
I want to purchase seven copies of the novel "Push" by Sapphire and 12 "create your own" books for my students to write their own autobiographies with. "Push" is the fictional autobiography of a high school age mother of two who overcomes abuse and poverty to educate herself and provide for her family. It's a story my students can identify with all too well.
The pride of having created their own books, the knowledge that their story is worthy of writing down and publishing and sharing with others is a boast my student's deserve. I want for them to learn a new skill in a way that helps them feel valued and this project will. Thank you for your time and consideration.
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