We need books that bring African American and Hispanic experiences to life for our readers.
FULLY FUNDED! Mr. Suttles's classroom raised $1,675
This project is fully funded
About My Students
I teach at a school where 99% of the students are minority and 93% receive free/reduced lunch. As middle schoolers, my students are inquisitive and want to understand the many things they are studying. They are interested in the world beyond their neighborhood, but few have traveled much beyond their community or the city of Chicago.
My students are good readers, and we have read and discussed a range of books this year, from "Watership Down"" and A Long Walk to Water", to "Night" and "Unbroken"Additionally, students have read a wide range of novels from our classroom library. This reading has exposed students to a variety of themes and genres.
However, it was during a class discussion of "Brown Girl Dreaming" that my students asked, “where are more books like this” and “why aren’t we reading them?” Books that portray the African American experience, but not about what they felt were typical African American topics.
We know that reading achievement and students actively engaging in reading text go together with academic success. Being able to provide students with books that reflect a wide range of African American experiences could
Driven by student interest and desire, the funding of this project will allow us to bring literature into the school that is going to provide a more complete picture of the experiences that African American and other minority groups have and to further engage students in the reading process by allowing them to see more complete representations of who they are. Students will develop a wide range of reading comprehension skills interpreting themes and author's point of view. Students will also develop skills connect to pride, honor and self-esteem as they develop a fuller images of themselves and those like them.
In Their Own Words
Where is the African American and minority literature? We asked this once we finished the memoir “Brown Girl Dreaming" and asked our teacher "Where are more books like this and how can we bring them into our school and classroom libraries?
For most of us, the literature we read does not necessarily represent who we are. Most characters in books do not reflect who we are and when they do it is usually around slavery, civil rights or inner-city kids who are trying to get out of a gang. We want to bring in more diverse minority books that we can read.
If we can do this, it will help us better understand not only African American history, but teach us life lesson and morals and help us improve ourselves. It will also help us out in that it can show us how we have made a difference in the world.
If we receive this money, it will allow us to bring in books that can inform us on who we are and what great things we have done in this world. These can be used to inspire each of us to reach for more. It will also push us to become better readers and help us meet our reading goals for assessments. By reading and learning, we can create opportunities for us to discuss books with our peers in both class settings, but also in the lunch room, at recess and after school.
This is important to our school because we need to know not only our history, but must also see ourselves in every day literature. We are a predominately black school and we know that urban schools have bad representation within most books we read. We rarely see books with positive role models, especially for the guys in our classes. We want to make sure we can read books with positive self-images that allow us to see beyond our own world on the west side of Chicago.
More than three‑quarters of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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