Whether you are a teacher looking for books for your classroom or a fan wanting to spread the love of The Hunger Games, you can support the Literacy Revolution started by my friend and fellow Hunger Games fandom tribute Shylah Addante. Read on to see how you can help the DonorsChoose.org campaign to get more Hunger Games trilogy books into classrooms, written by Shylah:
Three years ago, I started a blog to talk about this amazing
book I read. You might have heard of it- it was called The Hunger Games. It
wasn’t anything extraordinary, just me talking about my thoughts on things like
video games and Finnick and Annie… until I wrote a post about the personal impact reading the series had on me, not only as a
reader, but as a citizen of the world:
“It would be an understatement to
say that I was a wreck. I like happy endings. I can deal with loss, and death,
and sadness, as long as at the end good triumphs over evil. To me, no one won
at the end of Mockingjay.
It felt so sad, so hopeless in
those hours after I finished the book. I couldn’t let it end like that. I
needed to give myself a happy ending.
The Hunger Games series is a book
about many things, but for me the realistic depiction of how poverty and
oppression go hand in hand was at the heart of the books. The districts were
easily manipulated by the Capitol not only by a deprivation of resources, but
also (and more importantly) by a deprivation of information. It is not until
the Districts gain the ability to learn and communicate with one another that
the Rebellion is born.
Education powers revolutions.”
I put my words into action and went to donorschoose.org.
There I found
a project from a teacher in New York City:
“My Students: My Latino and
African-American students attend a high poverty school in New York City.
They are 13 going on 14, have a
nose for injustice, and love to argue. I need The Hunger Games to give their
voices a focus. After I discussed the book on the first day of school, they
were hooked. They would love a chance to investigate a current social issue and
try to solve it. As we will read this novel later in the year, they will also
have a chance to apply their Social Studies lessons.
My Project: The Hunger Games is a
dystopian novel full of social issues that the students will identify and
define. For each issue, they will need to explain how external events shaped
it, how it shapes a character’s choices and relationships with others, and how
it inspires characters to act and change their social environments. At the end,
they will choose a social issue we face (problem) and think of ways to change
it (solution). The unit not only allows them to examine how literature reflects
society, it helps them see the complexities of real social issues. By
discussing the issues and thinking of creative solutions, they are laying the
groundwork for a better future.
Unfortunately, my school does not
have the money to purchase 35 books. Reading is fundamental to a good
education. Please help me provide my students with the resources necessary to
foster my students' minds!”
I donated and then spammed my family and friends through
social media until the project was fully funded. The teacher was thrilled, the
students had access to books they were genuinely excited about reading, and I
had that warm fuzzy feeling that only comes with helping someone else out… and
I wanted more.
Through the support and help from Savanna and Adam of the
Fireside Chat and DownWithTheCapitol, we started a small movement to fund more
teachers looking to use the series in their classrooms. This was back in the
early days of the fandom- the Fireside Chat was about a month old and DWTC less
than a year with only a handful of other sites out there; but our small band of
rebels was still able to help two classrooms
get the books they needed.
Fast forward to now: the Hunger Games is a global
phenomenon: there are dozens (if not hundreds of fan sites); the Fireside Chat
logged 130 episodes, and there are almost 20,000,000 fans on The Hunger Games’
official Facebook page. I’d say it’s time to try this literacy revolution over
again.
Let’s get Books For Tributes.
My goal is to fund teachers across the country looking to
put The Hunger Games in their classrooms and libraries using donorschoose.org.
As of today, I have 45 projects queued up on this donorschoose campaign page,
and every. single. one. of them is looking to place our favorite book series
into the hands of kids across the US.
So, let’s do it.
Let’s stand with the Mockingjay and start a Literacy
Revolution. Our goal is simple. As Hunger Games fans who believe in equity and
empowerment, we will work to fund as many as possible of the requests for
Hunger Games books posted on donorschoose.org.
We’ll take it one class at a time—just as Katniss and the
Rebels worked District by District to overthrow the Capitol. Give as much or as
little as you like, as often as you wish. When we fully fund a project, I’ll
let you know on the Books For Tributes twitter and Facebook pages.
When you donate
please place the following somewhere in your personal message:
“I gave to this
project because I'm with the Mockingjay, and support a literacy revolution in
American classrooms. #books4tributes”
When you tweet about donating please use #books4tributes
Let’s set a goal to fund these 45 projects before "Mockingjay" hits theaters this fall, so that when we see Katniss on screen, fighting the
Capitol, we can know that we’ve done our part to fuel our own revolution in
Panem.
Fire is catching, and we are the spark. And if we put our
hearts and minds behind this effort, the Capitol doesn’t stand a chance.
*three finger salute*
Shylah
Thank you so much, Shylah, for recognizing the importance of literacy and supporting classrooms! Teachers: if you have a need for books, create a project on DonorsChoose.org. Fans: Spread the love for the series by supporting these teachers & students!
After I post this blog, I'm heading to DonorsChoose.org to support this literacy revolution. Please join me in this worthy cause!
