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This teacher needs your help!

Ms. Abeles from Hayward, CA is requesting books through DonorsChoose, the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.

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Fully Funded

Ms. Abeles's classroom raised $404

Poetry Should Ride the Bus.

My students need 11 poetry books, with blank CDs, a bookbinding machine, combs and bottled water.

Classroom photo
Ms. Abeles Leadership Public School Hayward
Hayward, CA Grades 9-12

Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month

Celebrate 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

Poetry should not make students groan. Poetry should not feel impossible to understand. Poetry should not lie flat on the page. As Ruth Foreman writes, "poetry should ride the bus." Help me show my students that there is poetry in the rhythm of their lives.

My students are curious and enthusiastic people of diverse backgrounds and interests.

Although they are in 10th and 11th grade, they consistently impress me with college-level insights and questions. Our curriculum has a heavy focus on writing, and yet most of our assignments are formal academic essays. For one week in May, our school has a program called Week Without Walls in which students and teachers choose a subject to investigate that lies outside the "walls" of traditional standards-based curriculum. My program for that week will be Poetry for the People (based upon June Jordan's program at UC Berkeley). I want to show my students that poetry can be about real life. I want them to feel the release of sharing their words with a supportive group. I want them to say "yes, finally!" when reading about an experience like theirs. I want them to beam with pride when performing, printing, and publicizing their own words.

My Project

My students need poetry books that come to life and electronic and paper supplies for publishing our own anthology and CD. With these poetry books, students will be exposed to poets with a variety of backgrounds and subject matter. Students will see that poetry is not an inert art, frozen in an 18th century meditation on a caterpillar. They will begin to find their own voices as we workshop their writing and revise with confidence. Their personal growth will intertwine with community growth; we will become a close-knit community of poets supporting each other in the writing craft, and students will see examples of poets from their own communities and backgrounds sharing common experiences. Students will also take on the responsibility of creating an anthology of our writing from the week which we will publish ourselves. They will work collaboratively to edit and compile our publication, and will learn the skills to complete a professional written product. We will also record and publish an audio CD with original hip hop and spoken word poems in order to incorporate performance techniques we learn.

Without support from donors, we will not be able to publish a professional caliber anthology.

Without donations, students will have a much more limited exposure to poetry. Without your help, we will not be able to create an audio recording for students to keep as an artifact of their learning for the week. Please show your support for artistic and personal exploration within students that deeply need an outlet for expression. Please give my students the gift of encouraging their voices.

This project will directly impact historically underfunded classrooms.

More than half of students from low‑income households

25 students impacted 8 donors
Ms. Abeles Leadership Public School Hayward Grades 9-12

This project will directly impact historically underfunded classrooms.

Hayward, CA View local requests

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

25 students impacted 8donors

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Where Your Donation Goes

Where your donation goes
Materials Cost Quantity Total
Some of Us Did Not Die: New and Selected Essays of June Jordan June Jordan • Barnes and Noble $13.63 1 $13.63
If There is Something to Desire: One Hundred Poems Vera Pavlova, Steven Seymour (Translator) • Barnes and Noble $17.28 1 $17.28
Paint Me Like I Am: Teen Poems from WritersCorps Bill Aguado, Richard Newirth, Foreword by Nikki Giovanni, Kevin Powell • Barnes and Noble $7.19 1 $7.19
Jelly Roll: A Blues Kevin Young • Barnes and Noble $13.68 1 $13.68
A Poet?s Truth: Conversations with Latino/Latina Poets Bruce Allen Dick • Barnes and Noble $16.15 1 $16.15
My American Kundiman Patrick Rosal, Manufactured by Persea Books • Barnes and Noble $11.92 1 $11.92
A New Literary History of America Greil Marcus (Editor), Werner Sollors (Editor) • Barnes and Noble $35.96 1 $35.96
Indivisible: An Anthology of Contemporary South Asian American Poetry Neelanjana Banerjee (Editor), Summi Kaipa (Editor), Pireeni Sundaralingam (Editor) • Barnes and Noble $17.96 1 $17.96
Best New Poets 2007: 50 Poems from Emerging Writers Natasha Trethewey (Editor), Jeb Livingood (Editor) • Barnes and Noble $10.21 1 $10.21
Best New Poets 2008: 50 Poems from Emerging Writers Mark Strand (Editor), Jeb Livingood (Editor) • Barnes and Noble $10.21 1 $10.21
From the Other Side of Night/Del otro lado de la noche: New and Selected Poems Francisco X. Alarc n • Barnes and Noble $17.05 1 $17.05
40X CD-R NEON 50 PK SPINDLE -- Imation CD-R Discs; 40x, Neon-Colored, 50-pack Spindle • Quill $12.41 1 $12.41
MEMOREX CD JEWEL CASE 50 PK SLIM CLEAR -- Memorex Slim CD Jewel Cases; Clear, 50 Pack • Quill $9.89 1 $9.89
NESTLE PURE LIFE BOTTLED WATER 16.9-OZ -- Nestle Pure Life Bottled Water • Quill $5.39 1 $5.39
FELLOWES STAR COMB BINDING MACHINE -- Fellowes Star Comb Binding Machine; White • Quill $89.99 1 $89.99
FELLOWES BINDING COMBS PLASTIC - NAVY 1/4IN 100PK -- Plastic Comb Bindings, Navy, 1/4" • Quill $6.29 1 $6.29

Materials cost

$295.21

Vendor shipping charges

 $1.24

Sales tax

 $21.40

3rd party payment processing fee

$4.43

Fulfillment labor & materials

$9.00

Total project cost

$331.28

Suggested donation to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

$72.72

Total project goal

$404.00

How we calculate what's needed

Total project goal

 $404.00

6 Donors

-$404.00

Donations toward project cost

-$331.28

Donations to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

-$72.72

Still needed View calculationHide calculation

 $0.00

Our team works hard to negotiate the best pricing and selections available.

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Project Activity

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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 Ms. Abeles and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.

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