Captivating a Community One Book at a Time

Funded Oct 11, 2022

Thank you so much for the generous donation of books to Montgomery Middle School's 8th grade English classroom program. The students are really enjoying checking out the books and improving individual literacy during independent reading times of our English class. Having a more substantial 8th grade ELA classroom library has grown the genre and cultural diversity for the students to choose from.

One of my classroom expectations is that students always have a book available for 10 minutes of silent in classroom reading; as well as growing their practice of reading for 20 minutes every night. As a first year teacher my library was not meeting my expectations. There were lots of teachers and family friends who donated books to my cause. Which was such a blessing. I still felt that the library was lacking culture, diversity, and a wider range of newer young adult authors. Thanks to your generous donation, I am proud to support nearly all of my students interests through this DonorChoose funding.

Two of the most popular books for students to check out are "Refugee" by Alan Gratz

and "The Summer I Turned Pretty" by Jenny Han. I am seriously considering doing a full class study of the book "Refugee" with next year's 8th graders. It is a real eyeopener as to what immigrants go through. The novel accurately depicts the true suffering families struggle with finding their way to an American Dream. I love how the story comes full circle in the ending. The book really defines what Montgomery Middle School stands for when supporting our students from over 51 different countries.”

With gratitude,

Ms. Barger