At $25, Doug and I realize that Mechanics Instruction that Sticks isn't cheap. We certainly feel it's worth the money — after all, each level of the book includes 10 or more units of warm-ups, a reproducible student handbook, a quiz for each unit, and a summative assessment for the end of the year. At the same time, $25 isn't a sum that Doug or I spend carelessly. That's why we'd love if you'd ask your administrator to purchase this for you and your students. $25 is a lot for an individual teacher, but hardly a drop in the bucket for most professional development or curricula budgets.
Below is a template I've used in the past to get administrative financial support for resources. I've tweaked it to fit MITS. The first paragraph is optional. It probably goes without saying, but just to be safe: make sure you're being honest when writing things like this — if you don't think you'll use MITS, don't request it; if you don't have things that would fit the first paragraph, don't use that paragraph.
Here's the template:
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Dear [admin's name],
The comments you made at our recent staff meeting about _______ were very [helpful, thought-provoking, generative]. My students are benefiting from the __________________ idea you gave me; for example, the other day ______________. [The point with this paragraph is to make a genuine connection between something your admin said and the curriculum resource you're about to ask for. It's also to demonstrate that you valued a specific aspect of your administrator's recent work.]
I’m wondering if you have $25 left in your PD funds for the year. I've been following a teacher-author online for a while now named Dave Stuart Jr. (You can find his blog at DaveStuartJr.com.) Mr. Stuart has published a resource put together by one of his mentors, Doug Stark; the resource is called Mechanics Instruction that Sticks, and I think Level [insert level here] would be perfect for my students in [insert class(es) here] for the following reasons:
- The warm-ups are focused and don't take up oodles of class time.
- The warm-ups help our students fill in some critical gaps of their language abilities — namely, their mastery of basic writing conventions and mechanics.
- The warm-ups, when implemented consistently, have worked very effectively at raising student achievement in Stuart's and Stark's classes, as well as teachers around the country who have purchased the product.
- The warm-ups are available to me for life, and they cover every student on my roster.
- The warm-ups include formative assessments (1 quiz per unit) and a summative, end-of-year assessment. By the end of a year with MITS, I'll really know where my students stand with their language skills.
Again, the cost is only $25, and that gives me license to use the warm-ups with all [insert number of students affected here] of my students. Quite a bargain.
Thank you for your time in considering this request; have a great day,
[Your Name]
P.S. Dave is happy to answer your questions. You can email him at dave_at_davestuartjr.com. [I made my email weird right there so that bots can't grab it from my website. I'm paranoid. You can make it a normal email in your message to your administrator.]