The cost of 30 copies of "Leon's Story", 50 sheets of poster paper and 30 sets of markers is $512, including shipping and <a target="new" href="http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm" onclick="g_openWindow('http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm', 300, 800, 'fulfillwindow');return false;">fulfillment</a>.
Located by the coast of North Carolina, my K-5 elementary school hosts over 500 students, 46% of whom receive free or reduced lunch.
Although each of my forty-eight fourth grade students differs from others in personality and potential, my two Language Arts and Social Studies classes have a very low number of minority subgroups. Within those two classes, though, are academically gifted students, exceptional needs students, and students unlabeled but just as thirsty for services as the others. With both groups, I focus on how literature and state-based Social Studies affects their lives.
After an intensive study of the Civil War, I would like to extend the concepts learned from that study into a study of the Civil Rights Movement. It is my philosophy that Social Studies can be taught using appropriate literature; therefore, I would like a class set of the novel "Leon's Story" by Leon Walter Tillage. This award-winning novel is set in post-Depression era North Carolina and gives students a first-person point of view on what it means to live in a "Jim Crow town." Through this, there is a face to match with the history of Civil Rights.
Forty-eight students are to participate in the study of this novel. I plan on supplementing the information from the novel with activities such as studying primary sources from the struggle for equality, Web Quests, and posters celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, but I am lacking this personal narrative that would most likely help students remember just how tough it was and how important equality for all is. To complete the Civil Rights study, I am requesting posterboard and washable markers.
Many of my students do not know about racism's ugly past. They do not know that, fifty years ago, it was almost impossible to be able to sit next to their friends, simply because of a difference in heritage. Tillage's novel vividly describes our state's past. I am hoping that, by our reading it together, my students will embrace a more unified future.
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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. B. and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.