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This teacher needs your help!

Mrs. Steer from Toledo, OH is requesting books through DonorsChoose, the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.

See what Mrs. Steer is requesting

A Novel Idea: A Diverse and Relevant HS Classroom Library

Help me give my students a classroom library that is truly engaging, socially relevant, and reflective of themselves. This extensively curated list of books is an amazing start to book choices paralleling their lives, imagination, and social pressures.

  • $699 goal

Hooray! This project is fully funded

Hooray! This project is fully funded

Keep the momentum going! Make a donation to Mrs. Steer for her next project!

Help Mrs. Steer

Keep the momentum going! Make a donation to Mrs. Steer for her next project!

My Students

My students are wonderful young adults, but struggle with the war between apathy and curiosity. I teach English 11/English 12 in a diversely laid out urban/suburban community and my students range from traditional family structures to sleeping on relatives/friends couches.

Many of my students enter at the start of the year with weak writing/communication skills and a disconnection from the human experience, but under the surface is a hunger for reading and drive to expand their capacity to learn.

Many have not fully read a book since 6th grade and it shows in their lack of empathy, critical thinking, and over all reading stamina. Others love to read, but often don't have the time or money to visit the public library or buy their own books. This rawness makes it even more exciting when they find a book that reaches them.

My Project

As a high school teacher, I often see the dim flicker of a light that once burned bright for so many of my students when they were in elementary school. I also see a weakness in their writing skills, reading stamina, and capacity to view all humanity. How do I help fix this? How do I re-spark that flame? After continually analyzing, reading, and discussing what best practices can improve apathy and increase writing, I think we are overthinking the solution. Read.

I can't stop thinking about Barbara Tuchman's words "books are companions, teachers, magicians, and bankers of the treasures of the mind; books are humanity in print." I want to give my students all of that and more.

Junior and senior year of high school is the last few years we have to leave our mark. I think if I can give them a library that they can call their own, one they can see themselves in, then we are one step closer.

I plan to use a revitalized and relevant classroom library, curated with love and filled with current and classic mixed genres, as a pairing to a weekly reading program, mentor sentence grammar exercises, fun reading challenges, peer led book clubs, and cross curricular reading initiatives.

I feel like so many literacy programs, book drives, and classroom libraries are geared towards elementary students, but I feel it is not too late and I want to provided the most engaging and exciting books from all genres possible.

Mrs. Steer Whitmer High School Grades 9-12

More about Mrs. Steer

Toledo, OH View local requests

More than half 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

140 students impacted 7donors

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Where Your Donation Goes

Where your donation goes
Materials Cost Quantity Total
March (Trilogy Slipcase Set) • Amazon Business $36.55 1 $36.55
John Green Box Set • Amazon Business $27.14 1 $27.14
The To All the Boys I've Loved Before Paperback Collection: To All the Boys I've Loved Before; P.S. I Still Love You; Always and Forever, Lara Jean • Amazon Business $20.15 1 $20.15
Wanderers: A Novel • Amazon Business $17.39 1 $17.39
Where the Crawdads Sing • Amazon Business $16.80 1 $16.80
GIBSON HOLDERS 1A 2-Wire Display Stand, Black, 12-Pack • Amazon Business $16.39 1 $16.39
Red Queen 2-Book Paperback Box Set: Red Queen, Glass Sword • Amazon Business $15.07 1 $15.07
Dear Evan Hansen: The Novel • Amazon Business $14.69 1 $14.69
The Hate U Give Collector's Edition • Amazon Business $14.69 1 $14.69
This One Summer • Amazon Business $14.57 1 $14.57
War Storm (Red Queen) • Amazon Business $14.38 1 $14.38
The Poet X • Amazon Business $13.69 1 $13.69
The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives • Amazon Business $13.47 1 $13.47
All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel • Amazon Business $13.40 1 $13.40
11/22/63: A Novel • Amazon Business $13.38 1 $13.38
Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation • Amazon Business $12.91 1 $12.91
The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy • Amazon Business $12.18 1 $12.18
Meta • Amazon Business $11.99 1 $11.99
30 Rolls Washi Masking Tape Set, 15mm Wide Colorful Rainbow Tape, Decorative Writable Craft Tape for DIY Scrapbook Designs • Amazon Business $11.99 1 $11.99
The Alice Network: A Novel • Amazon Business $11.69 1 $11.69
On The Come Up • Amazon Business $11.39 1 $11.39
After (The After Series) • Amazon Business $11.14 1 $11.14
Children of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orisha) • Amazon Business $11.02 1 $11.02
The Librarian of Auschwitz • Amazon Business $10.97 1 $10.97
All American Boys • Amazon Business $10.79 1 $10.79
The Goldfinch: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) • Amazon Business $9.89 1 $9.89
Anya's Ghost • Amazon Business $9.89 1 $9.89
Unbroken (The Young Adult Adaptation): An Olympian's Journey from Airman to Castaway to Captive • Amazon Business $9.89 1 $9.89
Little Fires Everywhere: A Novel • Amazon Business $9.86 1 $9.86
We Were the Lucky Ones: A Novel • Amazon Business $9.60 1 $9.60
The 5th Wave: The First Book of the 5th Wave Series • Amazon Business $9.46 1 $9.46
Salt to the Sea • Amazon Business $9.41 1 $9.41
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children) • Amazon Business $8.07 1 $8.07
Hidden Figures Young Readers' Edition • Amazon Business $7.99 1 $7.99
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, Young Reader's Edition • Amazon Business $7.88 1 $7.88
The Sun Is Also a Star • Amazon Business $7.79 1 $7.79
King's Cage (Red Queen) • Amazon Business $7.79 1 $7.79
Miles Morales: Spider-Man (A Marvel YA Novel) • Amazon Business $7.79 1 $7.79
Everything, Everything • Amazon Business $7.69 1 $7.69
When I Was the Greatest • Amazon Business $7.23 1 $7.23
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter • Amazon Business $7.19 1 $7.19
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas • Amazon Business $6.99 1 $6.99
Ghost (1) (Track) • Amazon Business $6.48 1 $6.48
I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World (Young Readers Edition) • Amazon Business $6.37 1 $6.37
Thirteen Reasons Why • Amazon Business $6.27 1 $6.27
Dear Martin • Amazon Business $5.80 1 $5.80
Flags of Our Fathers: A Young People's Edition • Amazon Business $4.75 1 $4.75
The Finest Hours (Young Readers Edition): The True Story of a Heroic Sea Rescue (True Rescue Series) • Amazon Business $3.56 1 $3.56

Materials cost

$555.47

Vendor shipping charges

 FREE

Sales tax

 $0.00

3rd party payment processing fee

$8.33

Fulfillment labor & materials

$30.00

Total project cost

$593.80

Suggested donation to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

$104.79

Total project goal

$698.59

How we calculate what's needed

Total project goal

 $698.59

6 Donors

-$340.63

Donations toward project cost

-$296.90

Donations to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

-$43.73

match offer

-$349.29

Match offer toward project cost

-$296.90

Match offer to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

-$52.39

Excluded support for DonorsChoose

-$8.66

Still needed View calculationHide calculation

 $0.00

Our team works hard to negotiate the best pricing and selections available.

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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Steer and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.

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