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My Students: Imagine a class of 60 students who are so ambitious they wrote novels this year! These same students are not able to have their own classroom copy of a book to use for a novel study. They cannot do character analysis or comprehension activities such as sticky notes because they have to share books.

My students LOVE to read. They are incredibly ambitious and they want to discuss EVERYTHING. My students attend a school with a high poverty rate, and they are a very diverse population. They are welcoming and accepting of all students, and they look out for each other. When my students had an assembly on bullying, they really came together as a school in order to make a difference and stop bullying. They are actively involved in sports, music, theater, and academic extracurricular activities. Many students attend an after-school program designed to help them get their work done in a safe and supportive environment.

My Project: My students came up with the idea to do a novel study because they really enjoyed reading and discussing their last short story out of our classroom set of literature books. They started by brainstorming a list of books they really enjoyed and put them on the board. They placed their final votes and decided on "Unwind" in 1st period and a combination of "Life as We Knew It" for the girls, and "The Dead and the Gone" for the boys in 4th period.

The theme in literature this year in our classroom seems to be dystopia. The students are excited about "Unwind" because it chronicles the lives of three kids who are the target of a compromise from a war between pro-life and pro-choice groups that allows for teenagers to be "unwound" if they are not contributing to society.

The "Life as We Knew It" series is about survival after the moon is hit by a meteor. The first and second book are parallel stories, but one book has a female narrator and the other has a male narrator.

The students in my class are practically begging to read in school and I desperately want to help them! We are very short on funding in our district and we cannot find the funds in our school to do this. Please help my students to continue to broaden their literary horizons and have meaningful discussions in the classroom about books they find relevant. Thank you in advance for helping our future!

My students need 35 copies of "Unwind", and 15 copies each of "Life as We Knew It" and "The Dead and the Gone" in order to complete a novel study in class this semester.

Here's the link: 

www.donorschoose.org/mrswhite1103