Expectations are high for students the moment they arrive. My students want to meet those challenges. My students trust that I will guide them through a complex and difficult world of letters.
My students are diverse across many aspects of their identity.
My classroom is representative of the unique and progressive qualities of the San Francisco Bay Area. Students have the opportunity for a broader, more holistic perspective of the world by bringing their various experiences and backgrounds with them.
My Project
Students in my English class are responsible for reading in groups - we call these their Book Clubs. They select their own books for reading based on a given theme (the Hero's Journey, Social Justice Issues, etc.). These groups determine their own schedules and pace. They meet once a week to discuss what they've read with their group members and perform an in-depth analysis. The goal is to teach critical thinking and literary analysis skills while simultaneously nourishing their freedom and independence in their own learning. Students learn best when they learn communally - when they think together they think deeper, when they connect to each other their perspectives broaden, when they engage passionately with each other they become lifelong learners. Funding this project will help me to build group sets of high-interest literature, non-fiction, and graphic novels for reading groups.
“[The dominant culture] has tried to keep us all afraid, to make us choose safety instead of risk, sameness instead of diversity: Moving through that fear, finding out what connects us, reveling in our differences; this is the process that brings us closer, that gives us a world of shared values, of meaningful community," says Bell Hooks in her book, Teaching Community.
Most books students read in high school are written by privileged writers, members of the dominant communities of Western culture. The texts selected for this project seek to decenter that power and refocus students on less often read writers: women, LGBTQ+, non-white, and non-Western.
Students will have the opportunity to read from diverse literature. Challenge themselves, discuss their different perspectives, make connections between their lives, and develop a greater learning community.
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. Holmes and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
