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Mrs. Vestal's Classroom

  • Eastwood Academy
  • Houston, TX
  • More than three‑quarters 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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Support Mrs. Vestal's classroom with a gift that fosters learning.

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We'll charge your card today and send Mrs. Vestal a DonorsChoose gift card she can use on her classroom projects. Starting next month, we'll charge your card and send her a DonorsChoose gift card on the 17th of every month.

Edit or cancel anytime.

Make a donation Mrs. Vestal can use on her next classroom project.

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Past projects 12

  • Help Replace Rewarding Reads

    Funded Nov 29, 2023

    Thank you so much for support my classroom and my students on their reading journeys! These high-interest books will help foster a love of reading this year and for years to come. I couldn't do what I do without you. I am grateful, and my students are grateful.”

    With gratitude,

    Mrs. Vestal

    This classroom project was brought to life by The DonorsChoose Community and 6 other donors.
  • New Year, New Adventure

    Funded Aug 1, 2023

    Y’all did it again. Thank you so much for supporting my classroom and my students by helping to fund this project. We are so grateful for your generosity. New books will capture interest and further learning. I can’t wait to get started planning my units and lessons around these awesome texts.”

    With gratitude,

    Mrs. Vestal

  • Horrifyingly Good Reading

    Funded Oct 7, 2022

    This project put high-interest books in the hands of students, books that they don't typically associate with school - mystery and horror. Furthermore, these books arrived just in time for Halloween, a much anticipated and widely celebrated holiday on my campus.

    And reading is contagious. All it takes is one unenthused student to read one book that they love to change the whole dynamic of a reading class. All it takes is one unenthused student to read one book that they love to convert them to life-long readers.

    Your gift made the chances of this more likely for all of my 9th grade students. Thank you!”

    With gratitude,

    Mrs. Vestal

    This classroom project was brought to life by The Montgomery Family Fund and 2 other donors.
  • Tempting Titles for Resistant Readers

    Funded Aug 18, 2022

    Students have been paired with an independent reading text thanks in large part to your support! Some students have finished their first text and are well on their way to completion of their second. Other students have raved about their first choice and inspired an eagerness, even competition, to see who will read a certain title next. Suffice it to say, we are becoming a community of readers.

    I cannot understate the power of matching the right book with the right student or the power of students discussing a book organically. Thank you!”

    With gratitude,

    Mrs. Vestal

  • Confronting Racism and Finding Representation With Graphic Novels

    Funded Aug 12, 2019

    My students have completed the first semester of the school year thus far. In fact, they are sitting in front of me and taking their final reading exam now. So far, students have done more reading than ever before!

    They particularly enjoyed reading Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. Many have read comics and a few have even read graphic novels. However, none of them have ever read a graphic novel as part of a reading class. Your gift helped us to purchase a class set of Persepolis. In doing so, you helped us to engage our students with a unique, high-quality, engaging text. And there is more to come!

    At the beginning of next semester, students will start a unit on dystopian literature in their English class. In conjunction with this unit, students will be reading Maus I, a graphic novel about the Holocaust in their supplemental reading class. This will allow us to compare a fictional dystopia with a real life dystopia to further our understanding of both the real world that we live in and the fictional worlds we will explore.

    We couldn't do this without you!”

    With gratitude,

    Mrs. Vestal

  • Finding the Marginalized Voice

    Funded Feb 28, 2019

    Your gift gave my students the chance to read Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. They followed Janie's journey eagerly as she searched for love. They encountered suffering and joy right along with her. They learned about one of the first self-governing black communities in the US. They were shocked, just as Janie was, with the harsh reality of colorism, a subset of racism. Having read To Kill a Mockingbird already, these students were able to confront a similar time period (the first half of the 20th century) and a similar setting (the South) but from totally different perspectives.

    As they read, they engaged in a unit long research project on race in the US. Their journey with Janie enriched and deepened the information that they used for their culminating research paper.

    We couldn't have done it without you!”

    With gratitude,

    Mrs. Vestal

    This classroom project was brought to life by The DonorsChoose.org Community and 8 other donors.
  • Printing and the Printed Word

    Funded Oct 10, 2018

    Thank you for your generous donation to my classroom. Your donation allowed us to supply our students with current, high-interest teen fiction like Wonder and The Hate U Give. Students have happily passed around the various copies of Wonder for their independent reading book. They enjoy recommending it to each other. Student to student recommendations are always more powerful than teacher to student recommendations. The copies of The Hate U Give have been enjoyed by students and teachers alike, even before our assigned unit. Both of these books have recently been turned into movies and the movies inspire students to read, students who have never showed an interest in reading before.

    Your donation also allowed us to purchase a printer and the supplies necessary to keep the printer functioning for months to come. Many students at our school do not have access to printers at home or at school even though the school does issue each student a laptop. By making this printer available to students before school, during lunch, and after school, students can take ownership of "publishing" their work. In this way, students were able to write found poetry using the novel Speak. They then printed their found poems and they are now hanging on the bulletin board outside of the classroom. The ability to print seems like such a small thing but makes a big difference!

    Thank you again for your generous donation to my classroom.”

    With gratitude,

    Mrs. Vestal

    This classroom project was brought to life by Chevron Fuel Your School and one other donor.
  • Tempting Titles for Eager Readers

    Funded Aug 11, 2018

    The books are already in the kids' hands! They are reading like crazy. My academic kids are reading an independent reading book that they chose based on interest and reading level in class and for homework. Favorite titles from this project include the following: To All the Boys I Loved Before, Maux 1, Eleanor and Park, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

    Each day during independent reading time, I circulate around the classroom and ask if students are still enjoying their books. I am still slightly surprised and very grateful to you that each and everyone of my academic readers has a book that they are enjoying. There are students enjoying books who have never enjoyed a book before in their lives, who proclaim loudly that they hate reading. When they finish a book, they get a sticker on a chart on the wall. Nothing more, nothing less. Rest assured, they are proud of those stickers.

    The highlighters and charts have been used to write literary analysis paragraphs on these books. The highlighters make it possible for us to color code the various elements of a successful paragraph and the charts make group work much easier (and more fun!).

    All of this is possible thanks to your generosity!”

    With gratitude,

    Mrs. Vestal

    This classroom project was brought to life by The Rebuild Texas Fund and 10 other donors.
  • Reading to Reimagine Lives

    Funded Oct 2, 2017

    Halfway through the year, my students are deeply committed to their independent reading. They each have an independent reading book that they enjoy (according to a recent survey). I have a few students who have voraciously consumed more than 10 books during the first semester alone.

    Without your generous gift, my students would soon outgrow my classroom library. Because our school is transition from one building to another, my students do not have access to a school-wide library.

    Your gift is keeping them hungry!”

    With gratitude,

    Mrs. Vestal

  • Engaging All Learners

    Funded Aug 16, 2017

    Thank you so very much for your donation. Students are using the materials that you provided for us regularly and joyously!

    During our daily independent reading time, students eagerly await their turn to sit in the reading corner complete with large, colorful cushions provided by your generosity. For plot development, students analyzed short animated videos using the headphones provided by your generosity. As they performed their irony skits, students held up placards to prove their ability to identity various types of irony and dramatic elements. The placards were made of the Popsicle sticks provided by your generosity.

    It is clear that your gifts have allowed me to design activities that increase student engagement. When students are engaged, learning happens!”

    With gratitude,

    Mrs. Vestal

We read literature to delve into the world around us and our own lives. We read literature to practice empathy and test our own beliefs. We analyze literature as an exercise for our brains. We discuss literature to test our ideas and learn from our classmates. We write as a vehicle of self-expression. This is the multifaceted purpose of our freshman English class at Eastwood Academy, a public school of choice focused on technology and engineering within the behemoth that is the Houston Independent School District.

About my class

We read literature to delve into the world around us and our own lives. We read literature to practice empathy and test our own beliefs. We analyze literature as an exercise for our brains. We discuss literature to test our ideas and learn from our classmates. We write as a vehicle of self-expression. This is the multifaceted purpose of our freshman English class at Eastwood Academy, a public school of choice focused on technology and engineering within the behemoth that is the Houston Independent School District.

About my class

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