My Students

Benjamin Franklin said, "The good education of youth has been esteemed by wise men in all ages, as the surest foundation of the happiness both of private families and of commonwealths." My students strive to achieve this in their lives every day. These resources will assist them in that task.

My students are from varied social-economic backgrounds.

I have children from very affluent homes to those whose families receive assistance from the state. Many are on our school's reduced/free breakfast and lunch program. My students are the smart, nerdy kids, the popular athlete, all the way to the self described outcasts and I think they're all great! Yes , there are those that are on the edge of dropping out and not wanting to be there, but they all know that I require the same effort from each one; which is to always give their best. Everything they do for my class is to be done with excellence. I hold high standards for each of my students, to challenge them to gain as much knowledge as they can while in my class and to apply that knowledge to their daily lives. Our school is a public high school, grades 9-12, with an enrollment this year of around 1500 students. Our school is ranked among the best schools in the state of Mississippi.

My Project

These resources that I am requesting will add to my meager collection of early American history books. In my class my students work on several projects and one of these is on Colonial America through the Constitutional Convention. They will use these resources to research different aspects of the Founders and prepare portfolio projects that they will present in class at the end of the term. They also work a lot with primary source documents in this project and many of these resources contain samples of those. Each portfolio contains a written paper, a biography of one person they choose, and a series of visual that they may reproduce or create on their own to portray the period they have researched. The dictionaries/thesauri provide reference sources to help them define words so they will have a better understanding of what they are reading. One last activity is I take a small group of students to D.C. each year to let them see what they have been learning about.

Donations to this project will make a difference in that it will help my students continue to learn why history is important.

It also fits in with our school district's goal of increasing the literacy rates of our students, through learning vocabulary and reading. These are important skills to have and will assist my students in becoming lifelong learners and informed members of our society, which is something the Founders worked so tirelessly to achieve.