Give The Hunger Games

Sometimes the materials we give children to encourage them to read are books that we think kids ought to be reading instead of the books everyone wants to read. This project has kids reading, not just fun books, but books that everyone is already talking about, giving them an extra incentive to read.

Butler High School Literacy Initiative

Butler High School in Augusta, GA

My Students: There is an extreme lack of reading in our community. Students would rather turn on the TV and watch the movie versus reading a book. During Independent Reading, we hope to ignite a fire and instill a love and appreciation for reading within our students.

This GA high school is roughly 90% Black, 7% White, and 3% other (Hispanic, Asian, etc). Most of the families here are of low-socioeconomic status and benefit from Title I. There is a plague of student apathy here but there are also motivated students as well who want to learn.

My Project: Having these resources in place will improve the 4th-8th grade reading level that many of the kids are presently on. Students are already using annotation to improve comprehension. This is especially beneficial when the time comes to do research papers from the American author books I requested.

This project is especially important to me because it frustrates me to watch the students walk around in their world, ignorant of the diversities and different cultures life holds. They are in a box-thinking mindset and willingly believe whatever Hollywood feeds them instead of opening a book and letting their imagination soar and their ideas flourish. The knowledge they will learn from reading will be far more than I can ever impart as their teacher.

My students need 25 copies of The Hunger Games, books that interest them and also better references for research purposes.

Starting today, any donation you’re able to make to one of the science bloggers’ challenges, up to $100, will be matched by the Donors Choose Foundation. They’re matching up to $50,000 from us, so this is an opportunity to have a huge impact. Just enter “SCIENCE” when you check out and help even more students.

Picture showing the "Match or gift code" field just above the buttons for choosing type of payment.

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Give The Hunger Games
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One thought on “Give The Hunger Games

  1. 1

    I will definitely donate.

    When I was in grade school, RIF was still a big thing. Every classroom had a small book cart with four shelves, filled with books that we could borrow without the hassle of checking in or out. The rules were: one book at a time, take good care of it, and return it before taking another. I haven’t seen anything about it in years, but I remember it fondly: I was introduced to Jack London and Robert Heinlein through the program.

    Another option for those interested in setting up a program in their own school is BookCrossing (www.bookcrossing.com). Basically, people tag books they’ve read and liked with a serial number and “release them into the wild.” My niece’s high school was an exchange point, with dozens of books changing hands every week.

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