Ms. Snider's Classroom Edit display name

Past projects 4

• We Need Diverse Novels

  Funded Feb 19, 2020

  I can't believe how quickly you helped us reach our goal! In fact, because this means that we'll get the books faster, another teacher is considering teaching this bok this year. That means that your donation will reach nearly 140 students this year alone. Thanks again for your generosity and support!”

  With gratitude,

  Ms. Snider

• Help My Students See Themselves (Succeed) in Books

  Funded Aug 5, 2019

  There's a Steinbeck quote that sums up my philosophy in teaching literature: "In every bit of honest writing in the world... there is a base theme. Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love." We read that "love" as love for another, but often, literature and the lessons we learn from it helps us understand and, therefore, love ourselves.

  Thank you for making it possible for my students to experience this. In creating this fundraiser (and the teaching unit that it supported), I wanted my students to see characters that reflected themselves. I think you can see by some of these comments, pulled from the thank-you notes that they wrote, that you helped us succeed in that goal:

  "['I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter'] was very sad because some Mexican daughters can relate to trying to be a typical Mexican daughter."

  "I relate with Emoni [from "With the Fire on High"] when she talks about her relationship with her dad, and it made me feel that I wasn't the only one feeling that way towards my dad."

  "['With the Fire on High'] kinda reminded me of my mother and how she was pregnant at a very young age and had a lot of responsibilities to take care of me and my brother."

  "['They Both Die at the End'] made me wonder what I would do with my last 24 hours."

  As my students read the book, they met weekly in book clubs in which they were in control of the discussions. Many of them had deep discussions on the choices the characters were making and the bigger ideas in each book.

  To sum up the unit, my students created character heads (pictured) and paragraphs analyzing why and how the character changes over the course of the book. By focusing on the changes these teenage characters go through, my students, I hope, will find some ideas about how they can successfully manage the changes that they themselves are facing.

  Thank you for helping make this unit, which I have dreamed of doing for a while, not just a reality but a success.”

  With gratitude,

  Ms. Snider

  This classroom project was brought to life by An Anonymous Funder and 9 other donors.

• A Good Camera Helps Us Get Everyone in the Yearbook

  Funded Oct 31, 2018

  I can't tell you what a difference the camera equipment you helped us buy has made with our Yearbook. You can almost tell the pages that use the new camera versus the ones that use the old ones. (See that amazing photo of girls soccer, taken from behind the player? New camera shot, as well as one of my favorite photos in this year's book so far.) Although many of our students are the products of our excellent Photography classes, we chose this particular camera because it is easy to use for all students, even if they have limited knowledge of the advanced features of cameras. All of the students who have used it have been able to take great photos.

  The photos we've been able to take with this camera are often the most beautiful on the page. On our thank-you page, you can see some of the photos from our soccer spreads, as well as the featured placement of the new camera unboxing on our Yearbook page within the yearbook. Our managing editor and photo editor, who did us the honors by opening the package, have made particularly good use of it to shoot many of our winter sports. These are particularly tricky to shoot, because sports like basketball and soccer are fast-paced AND the games are played with artificial lights.

  This package arrived with everything we needed to start using the camera right out of the box: memory cards, lenses, a tripod, bag, etc. Thanks for helping us reach our goal and allowing us to immediately improve the photographic quality in the 2019 Yearbook.”

  With gratitude,

  Ms. Snider

• Diverse Novels of Struggle and Success

  Funded Jan 25, 2018

  Thank you so much for your book donations to my classroom. When I initially posted the funding request, I hoped to get some good books in the hands of my students. But just about the time I received them, I was reading a book called "What's the Big Idea?" by Jim Burke, which is about getting students to think about big, important, essential questions around their learning. Inspired by that book, I created a Theme Project, in which they'd choose an independent reading book either from my classroom library (which now includes the titles you donated) or our school library, and they would connect all three books thematically in an essay.

  This project has been an enormous success, especially considering that I was kind of feeling my way through it as we went along. So many of my students were really engaged in the books they chose. One student, whose family moved here from Nepal when she was in 6th grade, tears up every time she talks about "Inside Out and Back Again," because it brings her back to where she was when she first moved to the U.S. It reminds her how she struggled in school, not knowing any English, and how one kind teacher helped her out. (Fast forward 4 years: she is on a winning Mock Trial team, wrapping up Honors English 2, and heading to AP English in the fall.) Today, as the students wrote their essays, I witnessed another, who has struggled all year with finishing writing assignments, finish a 5-paragraph in-class essay. She read "Always Running" and kept telling me how much she enjoyed the book. After the class ended, I asked her how it went, and she told me that her writing was really flowing, that she had so much to say in the beginning of the class period, but that she felt like she was running out of time at the end. This is a phenomenal problem for a student like her to have: she had too much to say. Also, I hope that the message of the book -- a gang-banger who discovered his Chicano identity through writing and school and eventually became a poet, writer, and professor -- resonates with her. Like Rodriguez, she embraces her Latina identity, dancing in a baile folklorico group, and like Rodriguez, she is whip-smart yet her grades do not reflect this truth about her.

  This project also helped breathe life into the standard curriculum in my classroom. By connecting books that my students enjoyed ("Secret Life of Bees" proved to be immensely popular) to our class novels and plays, they began to see how the themes of development of personal identity and an individual versus society connect to the real world and to their lives. They saw new meaning in books that we read in September, they saw themselves in the books they read that you donated, and, for many of them, they completed a five-paragraph in-class essay that contained complex thinking and analyzed themes in multiple texts. I am so proud of their academic achievements. I am so thankful to you all for making this possible.

  Thank you so very much. I knew that you were giving my students the gift of these books, but I didn't anticipate that you would be giving them the gift of confidence in themselves as readers, thinkers, and writers. I can't wait to develop this assignment around these books even more next year.”

  With gratitude,

  Ms. Snider

  This classroom project was brought to life by Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation and one other donor.