Judy Blume For Life!

Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month

This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.

My Students

Our students are heartfelt readers! Everyday they work to better their reading levels and progress to higher educational attainment. The constant challenge is that we need fresh books to keep our young readers on the path to literacy and academic success!

We are located in the South Bronx which is ground-zero for childhood poverty.

Our students and their families have difficulty affording books due to socio-economic conditions. Our school budget for books was decimated during the "Great Recession" and has never bounced back due to austerity and cuts. This is why I have written this grant to you. We desperately need your help to get these great books and help our amazing students progress to higher reading levels. We use the Reader's Workshop model from Columbia Teacher's College. What that means is that each student is expected to read a book at his or her reading level. To accomplish this task, we must at all times have a multitude of interesting books at a variety of reading levels. The books I have carefully chosen for this grant would help our classroom library to meet these goals. These books would immediately (day one that we receive them), be used by students to improve their reading comprehension.

My Project

Judy Blume is the master story teller and her books remain a powerful balm for students who are going through awkward years of growing up. Her books have humor and deeper meaning that keep them fresh for the young generations! I have requested multiple copies of each book because we heavily use the power of book clubs to make reading flow and communal. Students read together and discuss ideas of theme, author's craft, setting, word use, and inference. These strategies and lens are powerful ways of interacting with literature texts. They are further enhanced by the power of the group in book clubs where genius ideas are shared and accentuated by the group. Book clubs have a great synergy and the Judy Blume and friends grant will make a huge impact with our students in their clubs to keep them reading and growing rapidly this year!

Please help us provide our students with the powerful ideas in these deep books!

I have bought a multitude of books on my own, but a teacher's salary doesn't give the latitude for the kind of philanthropy that our kids desperately need. Please help us by providing these essential resources for our wonderful students! We thank your for your continuing support for our cause. The betterment of our students is the betterment of our world. Thank you and God bless!