My students need high quality literature that will stimulate thought-provoking discussions including The Story of Ruby Bridges, Voices in the Park, and The Arrival.
Second grade is a time when students begin to experience the joy and adventure of getting lost in a book. They move from literal thinkers to readers who can read beyond the lines, considering multiple perspectives and exploring the author's message.
My students are second graders at a Title 1 school in the Midwest.
We are a class of 22, with 11 boys and 11 girls. My kids are music aficionados and find great joy in dancing and singing. They are imaginative thinkers who absolutely love to talk about books. Some of my kids are so enthusiastic and proud of their ideas that they stand up in front of the class each time they share. They call out their observations and questions during read-aloud and seek to make both connections and disconnections with the stories they hear.
Our school provides leveled texts for small group reading instruction. This limits my developing readers to decontextualized, predictable, and rather boring plots to explore. At times, it's challenging for me to come up with ways to talk about the books we read in reading groups as there are rarely interesting themes to interrogate. I find this to be a disservice to my students.
My Project
I am requesting high-quality text sets to use for small group reading instruction. These texts will replace some of the school-provided leveled books we currently use. My students are ready to explore ideas of equity and justice, and they deserve to read stories that push their thinking and encourage them to consider multiple perspectives, like we do with whole class read-aloud. My kids need to read texts that make them think beyond the words on the page.
We need books that widen worldviews and stimulate new paths of thinking, books that stay with the reader long after the last page is read, books that raise valuable questions about humanity. My goal for my class is that by the end of the year, every student has felt something as a reader, not just answered comprehension questions accurately or read with fluency, but each one has felt something - a lingering question, an emotional connection or disconnection - something aesthetic that reveals the wonders of reading.
Having these text sets in our room will drastically elevate the work we do in our guided reading groups.
My students will have resources available to them that value and encourage the complex thinking of which they are capable. My students will experience reading as an emotional and meaningful act, as opposed to a required part of their school day. My hope is that through the exposure to high-quality literature, my students will connect with reading in a way many haven't yet.
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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. Darolia and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.