Last year, Jeanny Haneline applied for an Lewisville ISD Education Foundation (LEF) grant in order to help her English class for a future project, and recently found out she won a $1,305 to use for her project.

“In order to let my kids read some different types of books, I decided to apply for a grant to have a broader selection of books for my literature circles that I do in class,” Haneline said. “So it was a way to incorporate that assessment into what I do in here.”

LEF awards teacher grants for projects that enhance and augment educational opportunities for students and teachers in LISD.

“We’re very excited,” principal Scot Finch said. “Our teachers work very hard, and they apply for those grants. Not everybody gets selected; it’s very competitive, so for her to get a grant to help her classes in English is exciting for all of us.”

The main goal of LEF is to have students, staff and community design and implement a learning organization that provides engaging, innovative experiences every day.

“I think it’s important for creative endeavors in teaching to be supported,” Finch said. “It’s a function of the teacher. You have to have a teacher with the right mindframe and she certainly has that. She’s very interested in improving her craft every year. Some of the resources she’s going to be able to purchase with this grant will help her do things in her class that she hasn’t been able to do, and hopefully that will be engaging to her students.”

Last year, the district revised the English board curriculum to include a project at the end of the year. This project is an assessment across all the high schools in LISD. For the English 4 classes, students have to analyze a piece that has a surprise ending, or a surprising turn of events. Haneline plans to select several contemporary books, such as One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus, Waking Lions by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert, The Circle by Dave Eggers and Into the Water by Paula Hawkins.

“I firmly believe in student choice and I believe in student reading being an important part of what I do in here,” Haneline said. “So when I saw this assessment, I immediately thought of my literature circles because I like to provide that for my students. I thought it would be [a] good way to incorporate the importance of reading and student choice, so it could get kids excited about reading. Especially if its an array of titles that deal with different things to get them talking about books and reading about books and really enjoying the process. I’m all about getting kids to read. That’s very important to me.”