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This teacher needs your help!

Dr. McGill from Salt Lake City, UT is requesting books through DonorsChoose, the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.

See what Dr. McGill is requesting

History and Justice Through Colson Whitehead's the Nickel Boys

Help me give my students copies of Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Nickel Boys.

  • $1,021 goal

Hooray! This project is fully funded

Hooray! This project is fully funded

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Keep the momentum going! Make a donation to Dr. McGill for their next project!

My Students

The school where I teach is a large urban high school located in a section of my city where affluent, gentrified downtown neighborhoods intersect with industrial, low-income ones. Students in my classes come from a broad range of cultural and educational backgrounds. The school and my classes are microcosms of the economic and cultural divisions that animate American society more generally.

Almost 90% of my non-honors/IB/AP track students are second or third generation US citizens, or in some cases undocumented minors.

Some are homeless. A lot of these students come to school with no supplies; no backpack, no paper, no pens or pencils, and certainly no books. These students typically lack the material supplies and resources necessary for school. Yet, despite some challenges, most of these students bring enthusiasm, wit, and intellectual energy to class everyday along with a determination to learn and finish high school.

In the upcoming year, our school will engage in the greatest task we've undertaken since I arrived here a handful of years ago: rejuvenating ourselves as a community of learners in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. Help us collect relevant materials to re-energize our students' passion for learning!

My Project

A classroom set of these books would serve as a centerpiece for my 11th grade Language Arts class's unit on Black American history and literature. With its engagement with real historical events, its frequent references to the speeches of Dr. King, and its rich literary--but also highly engaging--style, The Nickel Boys would allow our class to connect many of the themes and writing techniques we trace throughout Black American literary history in this unit, from Frederick Douglass to Zora Neale Hurston to Dr. King. Whitehead draws on and complicates this tradition in this powerful and beautifully written novel.

Using this text as a culminating project would allow students to see how history shapes the present through a timely, well-crafted, emotionally compelling story.

Its basis on the Dozier school also allows for a multitude of research and information-based assignments and extensions that would allow us to address a constellation of Common Core standards through the work of the unit.

Dr. McGill West High School Grades 9-12

Equity Focus

At this school, more than 50% of students are Black, Latino, and/or Native American, and more than 50% come from low-income households. Learn how your donation to this school supports a more equitable education.

This project will directly impact historically underfunded classrooms.

More about Dr. McGill

Salt Lake City, UT 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

80 students impacted 8donors

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Where Your Donation Goes

Where your donation goes
Materials Cost Quantity Total
The Nickel Boys • AKJ Education $18.21 45 $819.45

Materials cost

$819.45

Vendor shipping charges

 $6.00

Sales tax

 $0.00

3rd party payment processing fee

$12.29

Fulfillment labor & materials

$30.00

Total project cost

$867.74

Suggested donation to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

$153.13

Total project goal

$1,020.87

How we calculate what's needed

Total project goal

 $1,020.87

7 Donors

-$510.43

Donations toward project cost

-$433.87

Donations to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

-$76.56

match offer

-$510.44

Match offer toward project cost

-$433.87

Match offer to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

-$76.57

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 Dr. McGill and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.

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