Classroom Library Grants

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 alumni members of Sigma Tau Delta who have been teaching in a Middle School or High School classroom for five years or fewer. That is, applicants may or may not be recent college graduates; the Classroom Library Grant is intended to help new Middle School and High School teachers, whether in their first years out of college or in the first years of a second career, to build a classroom library for their students.

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 use login using your email address and existing password.

Required Materials

• 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 Support authors are encouraged to review our Writing Effective Letters of Recommendation video resource.

• 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.

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 Awards Overview page for the Classroom Library Grant application window.

Final Project Reflection

Following the internship, stipend recipients are required to submit an article (400-600 words) for WordybyNature, the official Society blog, sharing such things as how the internship contributed to their professional growth or field of study; its impact on their future career plans; and the importance of the funding to the internship experience.

Blog Guidelines

Past Recipients

Classroom Library Grant Winners

Questions

Please contact the Central Office staff at sigmatdapply@niu.edu.