My students need a classroom set of culturally relevant text. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian is a wonderful novel that exhibits many themes complimentary to classroom objectives.
My students live and attend school in an urban setting. Most come from low socioeconomic backgrounds. The student body is multicultural and diverse. There is a large portion of students who are English language learners.
My kids are funny, creative, and honest.
They work hard and produce under the right conditions. This year, the focus in my class will be on professionalism and social justice. We will learn what it takes to be successful in academics and how these skills translate into a career in modern society.
My classroom is highly collaborative. We rely on teamwork, problem solving, and synectics to accomplish difficult tasks. Students will learn to inhabit a growth mindset to hone their voice while setting and accomplishing goals.
My Project
In order to partake on a Project Based Learning Unit, we will need a classroom text set so that every student has an opportunity to read the text. While reading this text, we will conduct close reads and Socratic Seminars. After reading the text, students will create a movie trailer based on one particular aspect of the novel that spoke to them. This could be a character, plot element, climactic scene or criticism. The multimedia element of the project will boost engagement but mostly the relevance and authenticity of the text are necessary to motivate students to read with passion. This novel brought me to tears in parts and made me laugh out loud many times.
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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. Kessler and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.