If only you could know my students. They are dynamic, helpful, compassionate, curious, and rich in experiential knowledge. I am amazed by what my students know about technology. Just the other day, one of my students explained to me how I could add an extra memory bank in place of the CD drive in my old Mac. Last year, when we held a food drive around the holidays, my students donated more than 300 pounds of food. My students care for their siblings when their parents work late or don't come home. My students make me laugh every day.
My students give me hope for the future.
They come from all over, as our city is a refugee re-location center, and they come from all different levels of the economic spectrum. The majority of the students at my school are eligible for free and reduced lunch; some of my students are homeless; some are them are the children of the city's movers and shakers. Yet, even in these days, when so much of our world is experiencing such division, my students teach me every day what it means to be a citizen of the world.
My Project
Many of my students don't identify with the protagonists in classic literature; the experiences in those texts are just too far from what they know and live themselves. Providing my students with a book like Looking for Alaska, by an author whose name many of them recognize, will give them a text they can enjoy and I can feel good about. Looking for Alaska is kind of like a modernized version of Catcher in the Rye, a coming of age story that both my male and female students connect to.
I have had several copies of this book in my classroom library, and have recommended it to readers of all stripes, all of whom have enjoyed it, so it's a proven winner with my students.
In fact, I have had students who are not even in my class come in and ask for the book by name.
Finally, new books are rare in my district, especially for those students who can't afford to buy their own. Having two whole new class sets of Looking for Alaska, books that aren't ripped and weren't published in the 1970's, will help my students feel important and valued.
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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. Pennington and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
