Support Your Independent Bookstore (and our classroom libary!)
The cost of 34 books from Barnes and Noble, including titles such as Memoirs of a Geisha and The Notebook, is $522, 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>.
I am a Literature teacher at Cross Cultural Environmental Leadership (XCEL) Academy, a high school in San Francisco. Our school has been teaching "at-risk" students in a successful learning environment for 3 years.
I believe that it is important to teach students to know their hearts and use their minds well. We prepare them to live productive, socially useful, and personally satisfying lives with an academic program that stresses intellectual development and social involvement in our society. I have developed a strong curriculum that places great importance on learning how to learn, reason, question, and investigate.
While in the bookstore looking for independent/silent/choice reading books for my students I realized that many of the books we teach are "traditional classics." We've had great success when teaching books like "Their Eyes Were Watching God," "The Bluest Eye" and "The Catcher in the Rye," to the whole class. However, I've noticed that when it comes to kids picking a book on their own, they are often intimidated by these "classics." I'd like to offer my students more choices when it come to independent reading and my classroom library doesn't exactly allow for it.
I'd like to build a classroom library that offers students a chance to read books they would see on the front table of an independent bookstore! The "hot picks" I'd like to purchase include:
"A Million Little Pieces" by James Frey
"My Friend Leonard" by James Frey
"The Chronicles of Narnia" Boxed Set by C. S. Lewis
"The Republic of East L.A." by Luis J. Rodriguez
"Memoirs of a Geisha" by Arthur Golden
"Forever..." by Judy Blume
"Son of a Witch" by Gregory Maguire
"Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" by Ann Brashares
"Life in Prison" by Stanley Tookie Williams
"A Walk to Remember" by Nicholas Sparks
"The Notebook" by Nicholas Sparks
"Scorpions" by Walter Dean Myers
"The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold
"Indian Killer" by Sherman Alexie
"Tears of a Tiger" by Sharon Mills Draper
"Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood" by Marjane Satrapi
"Ghost World" by Daniel Clowes
I'm asking for 2 copies of each book so the students can have a reading partner and discuss the books using an "Accountable book talk" method. The journals, reading logs, and booktalks they keep will be used as a document in their language portfolio to show evidence of reading growth and progress. They will also be writing reading reflections where they write about their process.
Thanks so much in advance for your support!
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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. Russo and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
