Past projects 2
Help Amazing Young Women Read "Children of Blood and Bone"
Funded Oct 1, 2019My class has received our copies of Children of Blood and Bone and we are so excited to dive into this novel!
We previewed the book today in my English I classes and my students were really intrigued. We started by using some pre-reading strategies to look at the title, cover art, and jacket sleeves. We also read the author's note and had a great discussion about the themes the author, Tomi Adeyemi, brings up. When I first read Children of Blood and Bone, I found this note to be particularly moving and it is what made me really want to read it with my girls. Although the note appears at the end of the book, it connects the topics of this magical, fantasy novel to current, relevant issues like police brutality and racial tensions in the United States of 2020, and I wanted this backdrop to inform my students' readings of the novel.
Here are a few first impressions written by my students:
- "I would love to read this as soon as possible now that I know the backstory of the book!"
- "I'm very interested in how the author ties fantasy into real life."
- "I think this book will be fast-paced with a lot of action. I'm excited to read an eventful book with a good plot.
- "I'm interested in this book and I've been wanting to read it for a while- it seems to have an interesting take on real problems."
We are so excited to be able to read relevant, engaging books in our English classroom and we can't thank you enough for giving us this opportunity. Thank you!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Majeski-Turner
Lord of the Flies Novels
Funded Jan 18, 2016Thank you so much for making a gift that had such a huge impact in my classroom. We are finishing up our unit on Lord of the Flies and having the novels for the students to take home made a huge difference in the way that I was able to structure this unit. We were able to spend much more time getting into rich discussions because my class was able to do more independent reading. We didn't have to waste a ton of time reading as a group which was great!
Many of my reluctant readers in class got really into reading this book and I loved getting to share it with them. The action and the violence caught the class's attention, but Lord of the Flies really lends itself to interesting discussions on good and evil and what keeps a civilization from devolving into savagery. We had a lot of thought-provoking conversations about human nature and I was able to hold seminars that allowed the students to express their opinions on some of the big topics in the book. They were fascinated by the idea that some consider humans to be innately good or evil and came up with some interesting opinions on fear, power, and what factors can cause good people to do bad things.
As we finish up the book and my students write their essays on how the book portrays human nature, I'm so grateful for the donations you all have made to my classroom. You made a huge difference to my students and your contributions are greatly appreciated.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Majeski-Turner