What's your favorite book? It's not something that we usually need to think about, because the book has left such an impression in our minds. Leaving lasting impressions through reading is what I try to do every day for my students. These books will open doors for my kids that will bring success!
I teach three sections of tenth grade literature and one section of ninth grade literature.
The books I'm requesting are to be used with my tenth grade students. I teach in a very low income school in a suburb in southeast Michigan, and there isn't any money to buy books. "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian" is a book that I would like to use at the beginning of second semester (January) of this year to get my kids excited about reading and to get them thinking about the themes we're going to visit over the course of the semester. I've tried fundraising, but with most of my kids coming from poverty or low-income they can't afford to buy candy or whatever else it is that we are selling. My goal is to get kids reading more, and to get them interested and invested in the books we're reading, so that we can move on and read some of the classic pieces of literature, as well as the young adult novels.
My Project
With the new national Common Core standards being implemented in schools across the country, it's imperative that we get resources into the classroom that will help our students get to the level they need to be to be successful in college and/or the working world. My students struggle terribly with reading and writing, so integrating young adult literature with the classic literature we read in school has proved in the past to be an excellent way to get kids to "buy into" reading. If we can get them to love books and to become stronger readers, then their ability to read college-level material (or work-related documents) will increase, setting them up for success in whatever they want to do with their futures.
We have a chance to take my 100 students, 75% of them who state they don't like to read and/or write, to a whole new world through books.
We can change their lives by introducing them to good, relevant literature, and in turn can help increase their level of success in school and out in the real world. Getting hooked into a book, and having your life change because of it, is something I wish for all of my students to experience; having this novel in my classroom could do that for many of them.
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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 Mrs. Rousseau and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.