Past projects 8
English Language Learners After School Support: Snacks!
Funded Jan 30, 2025We're so delighted that our project was funded, thanks to you! We'll order these snacks asap and hopefully add them to our after-school supplies next week. The kids picked out these snacks themselves and they are so excited to get them in the mail.
Thank you again for your generosity!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Bauso
This classroom project was brought to life by A New York City Parent and 3 other donors.Playwright Study: Lorraine Hansberry
Funded Mar 1, 2023Last March, I took my students to see a 3-hour production of "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window" at Brooklyn Academy of Music; thanks to your donation, they each received a copy of the play itself. The book also included "Raisin in the Sun," which we read the following month and students were able to annotate freely since they had their own personal copy of the play - thank you!
Seeing live theater and incorporating plays into the curriculum for English Language Learners is impactful in so many different ways. One student was impressed with the theater itself; another, the cast that included an actor he loved; many appreciated that the plays dealt with real-life issues and mature topics; and almost all loved taking our learning out of the building. Reading a play aloud in class offered an entry point for every student to read aloud, do character analysis, and learn more Black English, a dialect they are learning alongside Standard English.
Those personal copies of the plays made a big difference for many students, and I thank you so much for supporting this project!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Bauso
West Side Story Tickets
Funded Feb 26, 2020I am so delighted that we are going to be able to take this trip! I was just working with these students on elegies and their insights about religion and death were mind-blowing - I can't wait to see how they respond to this classic story and the experience of a highly-produced Broadway show; they deserve it.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Bauso
Culturally Relevant Literature for Emergent Bilinguals in Brooklyn
Funded Sep 12, 2019We started The Book of Unknown Americans last month, and it has been such a pleasurable experience for all of us to read this novel together. First off, it's an incredible book; I really recommend it. While it's not YA, one of the narrators is a teen and all the characters are immigrants, so my class is finding it highly relatable.
They are tracking specific characters and themes as we read, and they are consistently engaged. This is particularly a big deal for one of my students, whose acts of defiance from earlier in the semester included watching basketball on his phone during class! You can see him in the pictures, his nose in the book and about to launch into a deep discussion with his reading partner. I'm especially proud of his breakthrough.
We are completing a unit on the justice system in the spring and will read Just Mercy and supplement it with the recent film adaptation. I look forward to ending the year with Ta-Nehisi Coates. Thanks to your donation, students will have all three of these titles in their own personal libraries.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Bauso
Language Learning at the Museum
Funded Oct 6, 2017We had an incredible experience with this project. The two trips to the museum were notable - the first mainly because it was many students' first time in the building, and Brooklyn Museum is quite breath-taking. For the second visit, we were lucky enough to explore the exhibit on a day when the museum was closed to the public, so we had the place to ourselves and that was special.
Our work with the teaching artist culminated with the creation of individual student podcasts. I deeply encourage you all the listen to some of these. They are touching and completely student-created, from composing the narrative to editing sound files and complementing with sound effects. It was not an easy project, and necessitated a lot of support, but each student figured it out on their own level. And some when above and beyond.
Please listen here, and know how grateful we are!
https://www.youthvoices.live/tag/psc/”
With gratitude,
Ms. Bauso
Creating A Portfolio in the ESL Classroom
Funded Feb 23, 2017We installed our color printer several weeks ago, and though I'm very protective of it, we've used it enough to know how awesome and useful it is for an ESL classroom. All of the students were thrilled to design graphics in Google Draw to accompany their six-word memoirs - in case you're not familiar with the project, it's inspired by a famous one by Ernest Hemingway ("For Sale: baby shoes, never worn"). It's also been amazing for me print self-designed handouts that use color-coding and color images of vocabulary for the two newcomers to English that have joined us in the past few months. The printer has been such an amazing addition to our classroom, thanks to you!!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Bauso
Digital Literacy in the ESL Classroom
Funded Jan 10, 2017We were thrilled to get a new set of Chromebooks in January, and by the time they were set up and ready to go, this cart had been fully funded. It is great to have somewhere to keep technology organized, and students alternate taking responsibility for supervising the cart. They make sure the Chromebooks are removed safely, and that they are returned in the correct spot and plugged in.
I arrived at this school in September and felt daunted by the loss of things like laptops, a printer, and cart. After having access to such materials for many years, it becomes hard to teach without them! Thanks so Donor's Choose, I have all of these features in my new classroom at this point. I am feeling more at home, and the students have what they need to incorporate technology into their learning.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Bauso
This classroom project was brought to life by Google.org and 7 other donors.Digital Literacy in the ESL Classroom
Funded Dec 20, 2016I am writing to thank you again for your generous contributions to my classroom and explain what a positive impact this has had on us. The Chromebooks arrived in January, and because my groups are small, I was able to assign a personal computer to students in each class. The Chromebooks we ordered were white, which makes them look sleek and "Apple-like" and differentiates them from all the other Chromebooks in the school. Only my students are able to log in on their personal computers, and this alone sent a clear message to the students - that these were their computers, there for their learning. They visibly took greater care in handling them each day, and a certain degree of pride as well.
We use the computers several times a week and it never ceases to amaze me how technology can shift a student's participation. I can give out a paper with a list of questions for which students have to find textual evidence in a book, and many will work on it, but if I give that same list out electronically in a Google form, all of the sudden participation is boosted to 100%. I am able to distribute work for my courses completely through Google Classroom now, and all students have access to the technology they need to be successful.
This is because of you. Thank you again for supporting our classroom!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Bauso