This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
My Students
My students are 8th graders that live in the city of Philadelphia. Working in urban education for the last 7 years has been such a blessing for me, and I learn so much from their humor experiences as well. These students are incredibly smart and talented, and they all have unique interests and goals for their future.
In the city of Philadelphia, top-quality education is unfortunately a luxury that all students don't have access to.
Students need to work hard to ensure their future in a successful high school, which is their best bet to reaching their goals of college or trade school afterward. My biggest goal is to help these bright young adults get where they want and deserve to be in their education, and that starts with reading and writing skills!
My Project
Last year, my colleague and I began to fund a series library in our classroom, where students could choose high-interest box sets of books to pursue. Our hope was to help students more thoroughly explore a genre they enjoyed, or an author they loved, by exposing them to several books in a series. Much like a good "binge watch," there are few things more satisfying for a bookworm than to pick up the second book in a series after the first one left off with a great cliffhanger. We hoped that students would fall in love with a series, and their desire to read more and more would not only help grow their independent reading skills, but would also teach them about their own literary interests.
It worked!
Our series library was small last year, but kids fell in love with sci-fi when they never knew they enjoyed it before. One student couldn't stop and read the entire Harry Potter series throughout the course of the year. Both boys and girls alike visited the series library constantly, and several even had to be placed on a waiting list because the next book in the series they were reading was already checked out. We loved how popular the library was, and we want even more students to have access to it! So we are aiming to grow it more by continuously adding box sets to it that are high-interest for young adults.
We also included books that are high-interest, but accessible for our lower level readers in class. Some of the series books are a very high lexile range, so we wanted them to have access to the library too. Finally, we added some basic school supplies that will help our students be successful throughout the school year.
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 Ms. Stockbridge and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
