I teach 11th grade English at a high school in NY. It is a high poverty, public, and urban college preparatory high school, that is affiliated with Outward Bound program and has a focus on project based learning.
Eleventh grade is a particularly challenging year for our students for so many reasons. Many, for the first time, are thinking about their life beyond high school, and worried about all of the the hurdles that they will have to jump over to get there from academic success to overcoming personal and economic challenges. Because of the shortcomings of urban education, the vast majority of our students enter the 11th grade 2-6 years below grade level in reading and writing. Therefore our students tend to find junior a great challenge because of the need to sharpen reading and writing skills that will enable them to become more successful on SATs and to pass the English Regents, a two day long state examination that is necessary for graduation.
Because so many students have come to urban, public high schools from extremely diverse backgrounds,with learning disabilities, varying levels of educational experience and mastery of the English language, it becomes so important (and difficult) to find the "right book" to teach, and even more difficult to find the book for them to fall in love with. In the past seven years that I have been teaching, I have found the one book they unanimously love, the holy grail of getting kids hooked on reading, and it is "Of Mice and Men." Magically, once the book is taught, I have had a hard time to get former self-professed non-readers to stop talking about it, not to mention trying to get them to stop reading it over and over again.
In the past seven years that I have been teaching in under-resourced schools, I have never had the opportunity to put a book in the hands of every single student due to of the lack of funding. Nothing would make me and my students (who don't know the joy yet) happier than to have enough copies of the book, so that each student has the chance to fall in love with a timeless tale that still resonates in the present day. Help me continue my work as a reading match-maker with your donation. Thank you so much for your help!
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
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