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This teacher needs your help!

Ms. Ata from Chicago, IL is requesting books through DonorsChoose, the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.

See what Ms. Ata is requesting

Diversifying Our Classroom Library

Help me give my students a beautiful collection of fiction and nonfiction books by minority authors!

FULLY FUNDED! Ms. Ata's classroom raised $649

This project is fully funded

My Students

Every day, my students find different ways to show me how wonderful they are as human beings. Together, we go on a journey learning about each other and ourselves. Our classroom is a space to explore what we already know and what we have yet to learn.

Literature and language are our gateways into worlds unknown—our tools for figuring life out.

We've explored the devastation of the American soldier experience in The Things They Carried, questioned our identities while reading The Woman Warrior, and catechized the norms of society while reading The White Tiger. We've found truths about the world and ourselves through poetry, analysis, and creative writing.

My students travel anywhere from ten minutes to two hours to get to their school, which is located in one of the roughest and least-resourced neighborhoods in Chicago. They go on this trek every day in order to learn and to better themselves, and they bring along with them all that they embody - their families, hardships, beliefs, and hearts. At one of the most academically challenging schools in our city, our students epitomize success and will be the pillars of this generation's success.

My Project

Students of color often do not see themselves reflected in the books they read in school. This causes students to be discouraged to read on their own -- why would they take time to read books they cannot make connections to?

These books allow students to make connections to characters that look and feel like themselves.

Exposing students to texts that they can relate to is becoming more and more important as they grow in a world that often suppresses their multiple identities. Building a classroom library that encompasses so many identities will give them the books they deserve.

Ms. Ata Lindblom Math Science Academy Grades 9-12

Celebrate Black teachers and kids! This project supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of students are Black.

Equity Focus

This project directly supports students at a historically underfunded school. Learn more about our Equity Focus.

This project will directly impact historically underfunded classrooms.

Chicago, IL View local requests

More than half 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

145 students impacted 2donors

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Expand the "Where your donation goes" section below to see exactly what Ms. Ata is requesting.

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TEACHERS, FEELING INSPIRED?

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Where Your Donation Goes

Where your donation goes
Materials Cost Quantity Total
Concrete Rose • Amazon Business $13.98 2 $27.96
Parachutes • Amazon Business $18.99 1 $18.99
Reaper of Souls (Kingdom of Souls, 2) • Amazon Business $16.99 1 $16.99
Illegal: A Disappeared Novel (2) • Amazon Business $16.99 1 $16.99
Clap When You Land • Amazon Business $15.99 1 $15.99
Charming as a Verb • Amazon Business $15.89 1 $15.89
Where We Go From Here • Amazon Business $15.79 1 $15.79
Yolk • Amazon Business $15.48 1 $15.48
This Is My America • Amazon Business $15.09 1 $15.09
Punching the Air • Amazon Business $14.56 1 $14.56
Running • Amazon Business $14.49 1 $14.49
All Kinds of Other • Amazon Business $14.48 1 $14.48
Dear Justyce • Amazon Business $14.39 1 $14.39
Happily Ever Afters • Amazon Business $14.39 1 $14.39
Furia • Amazon Business $14.02 1 $14.02
All These Monsters • Amazon Business $13.69 1 $13.69
We Unleash the Merciless Storm (We Set the Dark on Fire) • Amazon Business $13.39 1 $13.39
We Didn't Ask for This • Amazon Business $13.39 1 $13.39
Grieving: Dispatches from a Wounded Country • Amazon Business $13.32 1 $13.32
The Voting Booth • Amazon Business $13.29 1 $13.29
On the Come Up • Amazon Business $12.99 1 $12.99
This Train Is Being Held • Amazon Business $12.79 1 $12.79
Saints and Misfits • Amazon Business $11.44 1 $11.44
The New Jim Crow (Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness - 10th Anniversary Edition) • Amazon Business $11.24 1 $11.24
Butterfly Yellow • Amazon Business $10.99 1 $10.99
Kingdom of Souls (Kingdom of Souls, 1) • Amazon Business $10.99 1 $10.99
This Time Will Be Different • Amazon Business $10.99 1 $10.99
The New David Espinoza • Amazon Business $10.99 1 $10.99
The Field Guide to the North American Teenager • Amazon Business $10.99 1 $10.99
Opposite of Always • Amazon Business $10.79 1 $10.79
Salty, Bitter, Sweet • Amazon Business $9.99 1 $9.99
Heavy: An American Memoir • Amazon Business $9.99 1 $9.99
A Blade So Black (The Nightmare-Verse, 1) • Amazon Business $9.99 1 $9.99
We Set the Dark on Fire • Amazon Business $9.89 1 $9.89
Love, Hate and Other Filters • Amazon Business $9.39 1 $9.39
Disappeared • Amazon Business $8.89 1 $8.89
Internment • Amazon Business $8.01 1 $8.01
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood • Amazon Business $7.21 1 $7.21
Dear Martin • Amazon Business $6.98 1 $6.98
Long Way Down • Amazon Business $6.78 1 $6.78

Materials cost

$513.90

Vendor shipping charges

 FREE

Sales tax

 $0.00

3rd party payment processing fee

$7.71

Fulfillment labor & materials

$30.00

Total project cost

$551.61

Suggested donation to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

$97.34

Total project goal

$648.95

How we calculate what's needed

Total project goal

 $648.95

2 Donors

-$648.95

Donations toward project cost

-$551.61

Donations to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

-$97.34

Still needed View calculationHide calculation

 $0.00

Our team works hard to negotiate the best pricing and selections available.

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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. Ata and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.

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