Philly Students Need Chromebooks to Become Career and College-Ready
My students need 5 Lenovo Chromebooks to access information in the classroom and elevate writing skills to career and college-level readiness in order to promote literacy in Philadelphia.
My students are witty, opinionated, creative, astoundingly resilient and indescribably unique. I serve students in Philadelphia who have either failed or dropped out of high school; they are mostly 16-18 years old and few are 19-21. Some students were forced to leave school as a teenager to care for a sick parent; some became homeless. Others have come to terms with an entire life of hardship. They've returned to our program to receive a high school diploma under very trying circumstances.
I've come to understand my students as young minds and hearts who are incredibly deserving of a second chance to succeed.
Perhaps the best part about knowing them is seeing just how bright their inner light shines on graduation day. I have never experienced such abundant pride. I'm so lucky that I get to see it every year.
My students would be more prepared for a higher quality of life if they had access to the tools and technology often seen on college campuses and places of employment. I plan each lesson to be beneficial to them and I wish for the available technology to match my agenda.
My Project
In a world of tablets, smartphones and touch screens, there is still only one way to write effectively and that is with a keyboard! These Chromebooks will be situated in the reading corner of my English and Advanced English classroom. They will be used to compose, revise and edit drafts of creative writing tasks and expository essays and to design formal documents for real-life application.
Instead of writing final drafts by hand, I dream of a day when my students will be able to practice their typing, word processing and research skills right there in my classroom.
Imagine this: students have just completed their first draft of their characterization essay. We're finishing up our writing mini-lesson which focuses on using better sentence and word variety. It's time for my motivated and inspired students to revise their work.
My first group of writing partners heads to the Chromebook table where they peer-edit. The other half of my class searches for quotes from our text to support their ideas. By the end of the project, all students will have had the experience of typing and word-processing-- skills that are lacking because resources to do so do not exist at home and they currently do not exist in my classroom.
When you picture a college campus or a place of employment, you are most likely envisioning a computer. I feel strongly that this is an investment that will not only provide my students with the achievement and honor of a high school diploma, but also real-world skills that will ensure their employability and continued education into adulthood. Thank you for taking the time to read about us!
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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. Santos and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
