Developing College-Ready Readers Who Love Literature
My students need class sets of 5 challenging literature titles including "Catcher in the Rye" and "The Kite Runner" to get them ready for the demands of college.
FULLY FUNDED! Ms. F.'s classroom raised $988
This project is fully funded
My Students
My students are 3 years from entering college, but many of them are used to getting through high school reading books that are meant for middle school students. At some point along the line, many of my students were given a harder book and didn't experience success with it. I want to change this.
The 10th graders I teach at a charter school in North Philly are in my literacy class because they didn't do well on a 9th grade standardized test.
My literacy class is supposed to reinvest these students in reading. My goal, however, goes beyond getting the students to like to read. I want my students to fall in love with the same pieces of literature that are taught in our most successful public and private schools so that when they get to college, they can engage meaningfully in conversations about the American literary canon and demonstrate their higher level thinking skills in reading-intensive classes.
I'm trying to move away from this idea of literacy class as remedial English, which is an unfortunate consequence of this academic tracking system we have in place. By engaging students in rigorous instruction using these literary classics, students will come to see themselves as serious readers who can achieve success with the hard books.
My Project
I'm requesting class sets of 4 different challenging novels and several copies of a very famous Arthur Miller play. With your help, my students can spend this year working their way through these several different genres of literature, such as historical fiction, autobiography, contemporary fiction, and classical American drama. They can hold books that are heavier and longer than anything they have yet been given in high school. As their teacher, I will guide them through the tough vocabulary, complicated themes, and hidden figurative language. When my students get to college and encounter tough homework assignments, they will remember how hard their 10th grade literacy class was and take solace in the fact that they worked their way to success. They will have a binder full of annotated passages and a journal containing pages upon pages of applied reading strategies. They will leave with a writing portfolio containing expository, persuasive, informative, and research-based writing.
If you support this project, you are helping make my vision a reality.
By the time they leave, my students will have read several challenging pieces of literature, written many analytical pieces in response, and given public presentations about these rich texts. They will leave not only more confident about themselves as readers, but with many tools to help them navigate through the tough readings that they will have as upperclassmen in high school and then as college students.
This project will directly impact historically underfunded classrooms.
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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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 Ms. F. and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.