We learn best when our whole bodies are involved. When we are drawing or speaking or acting, our brains are hard at work making connections from one medium to another. I want to provide my students with the tools to make their learning visible and audible.
My students, nearly all from racial or ethnic minority groups, are sophomores, juniors, and seniors at our urban California high school.
For the most part, they are not affluent; based on family income, a large majority qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Many are immigrants or speak a language other than English at home. My students often begin the year reading and writing several grades below their expected level. Especially for students such as these, it can be very difficult to figure out how to express one's thoughts in a formal essay. However, through the practice of analysis and composition in other media, students gain the skills that they will be able to apply to formal writing as well.
My Project
To really learn well, students need to see many applications for the skills and concepts they are learning about. In my secondary English classroom, I help students build relevance by expressing their understanding through visual art as well as through journalistic writing and podcasting.
We need higher-quality microphones for our podcasts so that we can capture our voices cleanly and create podcasts with less background noise so that other people will really enjoy listening, and headphones so that a room full of students can all edit those podcasts at once without disrupting each other.
These tools will allow students to better build their knowledge and skill, and to demonstrate those abilities to the world.
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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. Trale and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.