{"monthlySchoolDonationEnabled":true,"callToActionDisplayName":"Monarch Global Academy Laurel","outOfStateSupporters":25.0,"allowSchoolLevelGiving":true,"hasFundedProjects":true,"projectGratitudeData":[{"teacherId":1592960,"projectId":10375921,"letterContent":"Thank you for helping put exceptional books into the hands of exceptional readers.\r\n\r\nWhen To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys arrived in our classroom, the first day of class suddenly felt a little more like a celebration. The books arrived on the first day, and the students' excitement was contagious. Smiles, exclamations, and eager conversations filled the room as they discovered what they would be reading this year. \r\n\r\nThese students are not your typical middle school readers. They are students in grades 6–8 who consistently read two or more years above their grade level. They have developed strong reading skills, but more importantly, an appetite for challenging literature. They crave books that do not simply tell them a story, but invite them to wrestle with difficult questions, examine complicated characters, and see the world through perspectives different from their own. Your donation has given them exactly that.\r\n\r\nThe students chose to begin with To Kill a Mockingbird, and they are devouring it. They are not simply turning pages; they are digging into the text. They are encountering complex language and mature themes while learning how authors use characterization, dialogue, setting, and perspective to shape a reader's understanding. Reading dialect has become an opportunity to discuss how language reflects culture, place, identity, and relationships. Maycomb's setting has become more than a backdrop—it helps students understand how a community can influence the choices, beliefs, and development of its characters.\r\n\r\nOur reading classroom is an active place. Students read at their own pace, but they come together regularly for focused lessons, rereading, collaborative discussions, and analysis. We read important sections aloud, pause over meaningful passages, and highlight quotations that reveal how a character thinks, feels, changes, or responds to the world around them. During group work, students often read the same passage through different lenses. One student may examine figurative language while others search for symbolism, dialogue, or consider characterization. When they bring those observations together, the individual pieces begin to form a much larger picture of the text.\r\n\r\nThese books help students practice something even more valuable than reading comprehension: learning to think deeply together. They are learning that a strong reader does not simply ask, \"What happened?\" but also asks, \"Why did it happen? What does it reveal? Whose perspective am I seeing? What is the author asking me to consider?\" They are learning to support their ideas with evidence, listen to interpretations that differ from their own, and recognize that complex literature rarely comes with simple answers.\r\n\r\nPerhaps the greatest impact of your donation is that these students now have books that meet them where they are as readers while also challenging them to stretch even further. You have opened a door to literature that asks them to step beyond what is comfortable and into what is complicated, meaningful, and thought-provoking.\r\n\r\nThank you for giving our students books worthy of their abilities and imaginations. Thank you for helping us turn pages into conversations, conversations into questions, and questions into deeper understanding. Most of all, thank you for reminding these young readers that their hunger for challenging literature is something to celebrate.\r\n\r\nBecause of your generosity, our classroom is filled with students who are not simply reading books—they are opening windows into new worlds, holding up mirrors to their own thinking, and learning to see the world through someone else's eyes.\r\n\r\nAnd they are loving every page.","fullyFundedDate":1784153470640,"projectUrl":"project/empowering-exceptional-readers-with-exce/10375921/","projectTitle":"Empowering Exceptional Readers With Exceptional Books","teacherDisplayName":"Ms. Medeiros","teacherPhotoUrl":"https://storage.donorschoose.net/dc_prod/images/teacher/profile/272x272/tp1592960_272x272.jpg?width=272&height=272&fit=bounds&auto=webp&t=1469024897402","teacherClassroomUrl":"classroom/pmedeiros"}],"pageName":"schoolpage_107864","usesDonorsChoose":true,"infoPageType":"school","demographicsInfo":{"numStudents":836,"numTeachers":54,"percentFrplEligible":57,"percentAsian":5,"percentBlack":55,"percentWhite":8,"percentIndigenous":0,"percentLatinx":27,"showFreeAndReducedPriceLunchInfo":true,"showDemographicsInfo":true,"sourceTooltipString":"the National Center for Education Statistics","percentHawaiianImputed":0,"percentMultiracialImputed":3,"gradesServed":"K - 8","studentTeacherRatio":"15.5:1","demographicsDataSource":"MDR School","equityFocus":true,"titleOne":false,"metroType":"RURAL","ncesMetroType":"SUBURB_LARGE"},"inStateSupporters":75.0,"schoolId":107864,"financialInfo":null,"twitterShareText":"Learn more about Monarch Global Academy Laurel on @DonorsChoose:","schoolName":"Monarch Global Academy Laurel","canonicalPageUrl":"schools/maryland/anne-arundel-county-public-schools/monarch-global-academy/107864"}