Every day is new and exciting for my students, as they have all recently arrived to the USA. Many of them never had to opportunity to attend school in their countries of origin, so they find day-to-day school life both intimidating and exhilarating.
My students are in grades 6-8, ranging in ages from 10-14.
They have come to the USA fairly recently from all over the world as refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants. Most of them never had the privilege of going to school in their countries of origin, or due to relocating numerous times, their formal educational experiences have been limited and disrupted. They are eager to learn, to participate, and to contribute to this school community.
Some are literate in their first languages or their second languages. Some of them are illiterate in any language. Others are functioning with about an equivalent to kindergarten or first grade leveled monolingual English speaking students in literacy.
My Project
My students are constantly writing, reading and sharing their work with each other. I want them to have ink and paper so that we can utilize the printer that I have (previously donated by Donorschoose.org) in this classroom. They have many opportunities to write narratives, poetry, literary responses/ essays, non-fiction pieces of work. Ideally, they could create a hard copy portfolio of their work to document their individual growth and to take with them at the end of this year.
Additionally, the nature of working with students from such a variety of first languages and prior educational experiences requires that I have all activities and learning objectives scaffolded to accommodate for each student's needs. This often requires printing stories, articles or other texts. Currently, I buy the paper and ink out of pocket.
The ink and paper will allow us to document growth and processes more freely and accurately.
I want the students to have ownership over their developments, and access to printing would support that goal.
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