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Mrs. Sekera's Classroom

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Past projects 3

  • Promoting Active Student Engagement Through Worthwhile Classroom Whiteboard Utilization

    Funded Aug 14, 2024

    My students and I cannot thank you enough for your kindness and generosity in helping us purchase the three whiteboards, multicolored dry-erase markers, and dry-erase marker erasers. I mention "multicolored" because students "like writing in different colors" (especially purple, a student emphasized)!

    Your investment in our classroom, my students, and me is truly reaping dividends this year, as we use our whiteboards and supplies regularly during instruction. For example, we began using them this year when we conducted a parts of speech review to discern what students knew about that content before moving on to further grammar instruction. Adding your whiteboards to our existing whiteboard space allowed students to spread around the room and devote significant space to each part of speech, defining it, giving examples of it, and using it in a sentence. The significant amount of space allows each student room to write his/her information, which keeps everyone engaged and involved. Students can also write large enough for their classmates to see their work from across the room.

    We also used these whiteboards to discuss chapters in a memoir we read, with each group answering assigned questions on their whiteboard. Utilizing the whiteboards for this content offered a different way of reviewing the text, keeping the students fresh and engaged.

    Additionally, one of my classes reviewed novel content on the whiteboards, recording their answers and thoughts to assigned questions, then presenting that information to the class. This shows that your whiteboards are also helping to develop and hone my students' presentation and communication skills, which are vital components of Grade 7 ELA.

    Comments about the whiteboards from my students include the following: "They have been very helpful in making lessons fun and engaging!" and "They make me feel like a mini-teacher, as I get to write on the whiteboard and present." Students also stated that the whiteboards get us "out of our seats and moving around for exercise," "make the lessons more fun," offer "more group work and more perspectives and thoughts on an issue," and "keep us from sitting in our seats all of the time; we get to stretch."

    As you can see, my students and I are thrilled to have and use these whiteboards. Your generous donation has and continues to truly make a difference for my current and future students and me!”

    With gratitude,

    Mrs. Sekera

    This classroom project was brought to life by The Gates Foundation and 4 other donors.
  • Exploring Uncharted Territory

    Funded Nov 30, 2022

    My students and I absolutely love the new classroom cart that you provided to us through your kindness and generosity. We use it on a daily basis for presentations, laptop content projection, and 3D "real item" projection with our ELMO; it also serves as a storage and organization site for our extra classroom laptop and chargers as well as a "home base" for our wires for our charging needs. Organizing our classroom connections, wires, and technology with our new cart has made our classroom space safer for all of us, as we no longer trip over wires and other connection items.

    My Grade 7 students love to use this cart, which has ample room on the top, to place and connect their Chromebooks and papers when they present to the class, which they did recently to present group poem analysis results to their classmates and me. (See attached photos.)

    We hope to use our cart throughout the remainder of the school year (and during future years) for our remaining presentations and classroom activities.

    Thank you again for your kindness and generosity! We all greatly appreciate it!”

    With gratitude,

    Mrs. Sekera

    This classroom project was brought to life by an Anonymous Classroom Supporter and one other donor.
  • Exploring the Graphic Novel Genre

    Funded Dec 25, 2021

    Thanks to your kindness and generosity, my Grade 7 English students at Trafford Middle School recently read and analyzed the historical nonfiction graphic novel entitled "The Great American Dust Bowl" by Don Brown. This was a valuable opportunity for them to interact with this interdisciplinary, visually appealing, and engaging genre, examining graphic novel elements, format, text structure, author's purpose, central idea, key details, and how key details support the central idea, among other factors.

    After interacting with this graphic novel, students began a writing unit based on another nonfiction text of the same topic. In this unit, students wrote a text-dependent analysis response to a given prompt focusing on how the key details in the text support the central idea, supporting their claims with evidence from the text. Their prior interaction with the graphic novel greatly aided them in this process. Utilizing a graphic novel for this purpose aligns with Pennsylvania's Core Standards relating to analyzing the author's craft and text structure, so it perfectly aligned with my course curriculum.

    Reading, discussing, and analyzing a graphic novel versus a regular print novel was greatly beneficial for my students, as this unit taught them so much more about various aspects of literature and engaged my reluctant readers. We conducted our text analysis and content discussions much differently than we do our "regular" text-based novel analysis and discussion. For example, we focused on analyzing how the pictures tell the story versus allowing the words to tell the story. Also, due to an illustration at the end of the book, I was provided the opportunity to introduce and discuss a popular work of art that the author adapted and used as an illustration, analyzing his purpose for including it and why he adapted it to fit his narrative. Who would have thought that American art history and modernistic art analysis would have a place in this graphic novel unit?!

    My students provided much positive feedback about this experience. Their comments include: "I liked how the author uses moody colors to convey that it was gloomy," "I liked reading The Great American Dust Bowl because I enjoy graphic novels more than regular books[, as] graphic novels are easier to read for me," "I enjoyed the graphic novel because it allowed you to see a visual representation of the story...[T]he illustrations the author gave..helped you understand the setting, characters, and what's happening. It told a story by using pictures over words," "I enjoy seeing pictures because it shows the story more than a chapter book." "I enjoyed reading the book because it is a different type of reading to do," "I enjoyed that we changed what type of book we read from a novel to a graphic novel which was a good change of pace and was enjoyable," "I enjoyed it because it is not as overwhelming as a normal book and you can understand it better," and "I liked...how all the panels are laid out and some connect to show progression."

    Overall, both my students and I enjoyed reading this novel and are grateful for this enjoyable and educational opportunity that you provided for us through your kindness and generosity!”

    With gratitude,

    Mrs. Sekera

The graphic novel "The Great American Dust Bowl" by Don Brown pairs perfectly with our second semester reading concerning this topic, where my students are asked to determine the central idea of an informational text. After reading and analyzing the text, my students write a text-dependent analysis response to a given prompt, utilizing information from the text to support their analysis. While they are more comfortable reading and analyzing fiction writing, reading and analyzing nonfiction texts presents a challenge to many of my seventh-grade learners. Therefore, I feel this graphic novel would aid them in this process due to its format. In 2017, Edutopia listed this particular graphic novel as a "powerful graphic novel[s] for middle school." Determining a central idea using a graphic novel is an interdisciplinary, multimodal creative, interesting, visually appealing, and engaging way to share the same information while exploring a fun genre of literature that possesses much merit for my students; this type of genre also engages reluctant readers. Utilizing a graphic novel for this purpose aligns with our PA Core Standards relating to analyzing the author's craft and text structure by evaluating the author's use of graphics. I am very excited to read, evaluate, and discuss this type of genre in general, in addition to its colors, layout, format, text placement, style, and overall structure and purpose!

About my class

The graphic novel "The Great American Dust Bowl" by Don Brown pairs perfectly with our second semester reading concerning this topic, where my students are asked to determine the central idea of an informational text. After reading and analyzing the text, my students write a text-dependent analysis response to a given prompt, utilizing information from the text to support their analysis. While they are more comfortable reading and analyzing fiction writing, reading and analyzing nonfiction texts presents a challenge to many of my seventh-grade learners. Therefore, I feel this graphic novel would aid them in this process due to its format. In 2017, Edutopia listed this particular graphic novel as a "powerful graphic novel[s] for middle school." Determining a central idea using a graphic novel is an interdisciplinary, multimodal creative, interesting, visually appealing, and engaging way to share the same information while exploring a fun genre of literature that possesses much merit for my students; this type of genre also engages reluctant readers. Utilizing a graphic novel for this purpose aligns with our PA Core Standards relating to analyzing the author's craft and text structure by evaluating the author's use of graphics. I am very excited to read, evaluate, and discuss this type of genre in general, in addition to its colors, layout, format, text placement, style, and overall structure and purpose!

About my class

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