Award Cycle: Summer and Fall
Aims and Eligibility
Sigma Tau Delta’s Classroom Library Grants are designed to enhance the Society’s goals of
- promoting interest in literature and language in the surrounding communities;
- fostering all aspects of the discipline of English, including literature, language, and writing; and
- serving society by fostering literacy.
The Classroom Library Grants are also intended to support our members who have entered the field of teaching and need material support to help achieve these goals through their work in the classroom by providing their students with a library in their own classrooms, especially where access to school or public libraries or to books in the home may be limited.
The Society will award up to five grants of $400 each per cycle to help student and alumni members of Sigma Tau Delta who are teachers of record in pre-school through twelfth-grade classrooms build a classroom library for their students. Applicants need not be recent college graduates or new teachers.
How to Apply
Applications for the Classroom Library Grant are accepted through AwardSpring. The link to access the Sigma Tau Delta AwardSpring platform will be posted on the AwardSpring Application informational page of our website once the Summer Awards Cycle opens.
If you are using AwardSpring for the first time, you must create an account by clicking “Register.” If you have used AwardSpring previously, you should login using your email address and existing password.
Required Materials
1. Letter of Recommendation from a supervisor at your school (your principal, vice principal, department chair, or senior colleague), including:
- your number of years in the classroom;
- demographic and geographic information about the school;
- your plans for using the library grant funds; and
- letter writer’s mailing address, email address, and phone number.
The due date for this letter of support will be one week after the AwardSpring application deadline. Letter of Recommendation authors are encouraged to review our Writing Effective Letters of Recommendation video resource.
2. Written Narrative, not to exceed 500 words, including:
- information about the school where you teach and the local area, including the percentage of students at your school on the free and reduced lunch program;
- the level of access your students have to a school library (hours, number of books available that can be checked out per student over what period, or other relevant information regarding access);
- the proximity of the nearest public library and information about its holdings, policies, and hours that might affect student access;
- information about the local culture that may affect the kind of books students have access to in the home or through school and public libraries;
- an explanation of how you envision a classroom library supporting your students’ efforts toward literacy and a love of literature, language, and writing; and
- if your classroom library has shared access with other teachers, please explain how it works.
3. Wishlist—Submit a list of 20-30 titles you plan to purchase with the funds. You may reference this list in your narrative if you want to explain the rationale for including certain titles.
Criteria for Selection
In choosing recipients, evaluators will consider the following criteria:
- lack of economic and geographic access to books at your school, or another demonstrated need;
- the explanation of how the classroom library envisioned will support your goals in alignment with the Society’s goals; and
- supervisory endorsement of your classroom library project.
Deadline
See the Grant Overview page for the Classroom Library Grant application window.
Final Project Reflection
Following use of the grant recipients are required to submit an article (400-600 words) for WORDY by Nature, the official Society blog, sharing such things as your experience acquiring books and building/growing your classroom library and how the grant contributed to your students’ engagement with your classroom library, enthusiasm for reading, and its impact on their overall access to diverse books.
Past Grant Recipient Blogs
Check out blog posts submitted by past recipients of Classroom Library Grants, Chapter Service Project Grants, and LIT Research Grants to gain inspiration for your grant applications.
View: Past Grant Recipient Blogs
Questions
Please contact the Central Office staff at sigmatdapply@niu.edu.
