What's a Socratic Seminar Without Class Novel Sets?
My students need class sets of The Finest Hours, A Long Walk to Water, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and Ungifted for a variety of background and cultural experiences.
FULLY FUNDED! Ms. Asay's classroom raised $752
This project is fully funded
My Students
My 6th graders show me every day how funny, smart, and creative they can be in unexpected ways. They are artists, athletes, scholars, and comedians who all think and learn differently. This year, we're studying a variety of novel genres in class and using a Socratic Seminar to dig into and discuss what we're reading. This gives them a chance to let their unique world view shine through and it's so exciting to watch and experience! I want to offer my students diverse cultural and background experiences that are not a part of their natural lives, as many come from a rural area in Maine.
I want to help my students fall in love with reading and to see books as a window to a world that they haven't yet experienced.
Many have never read or heard of Harry Potter, have experienced life outside of Maine, or tried to imagine another culture or world different than their own. It is my hope that through our novel studies, my students can discover a world outside their own, how each and every one of them can affect change, and help them realize just how much is waiting for them in this world.
My Project
I believe that the best way to create connections and understanding of what we read and learn is by talking about it. By having whole class discussions as well as opportunities to write about what they have read in Socratic Seminars, students are given the opportunity to talk about their own learning and understand others' perspectives. Having class sets of the novels we read is an integral part of the Socratic Seminar process.
My students are working through their own understanding, speaking and listening skills, and adding to their current knowledge or revising any misconceptions as they communicate their own learning of what we have read as a class.
Students will have the opportunity to follow along as I read, to read aloud themselves, if they choose, to partner read, to create literature circles, or to read independently. To be able to offer my students these choices, my classroom needs to have a class set of novels for each genre. A novel for each student provides more opportunities for that student to support their thinking and writing. It provides a way for students to defend their opinions and thoughts as they have to refer back to the novel to find that supporting text evidence. Having class novel sets also allows students a visual aid as we read, enabling them to read the text as they are hearing it at the same time.
More than half of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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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. Asay and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
