Student Work Decorates Classrooms

Posted by Thadra Petkus Aug 8, 2008

As a high school English teacher, I find it easy to incorporate student work in the classroom. Sure, when students give presentations on Greek mythology or their favorite poems revolving around a particular theme, I require they post their visual aid (which is usually a poster but can also be student-made greeting cards, scrapbooks, or character photo albums). In some cases, we’ve built shelves and extend bookcases to create sufficient vertical space in our classroom, but it’s been well worth the effort.

In "Students Help Prepare Classroom for New Year," we discuss techniques that can be used to get students involved in decorating their new classroom. I think it’s important to allow a bit of time at the beginning or end of class to encourage students to observe the work of others. This “publication” of their work instills a sense of pride and encourages students to produce masterful and creative visual aids. Seeing students get excited about their work is all the validation I need to repeat this system year after year.

Similarly, I post anonymous writing assignments on the bulletin boards, or even directly on the walls. With 150 ninth and tenth graders, I find my little portable classroom gets crowded pretty quickly. But I don’t let that hinder our publication of student work. I structure activities that instruct student how to offer anonymous comments and feedback on posted work. They have to comment on certain rubric criteria such as

• Focus
• Organization
• Support/ Details
• Grammar

Their comments get posted underneath the original piece of writing and they are graded on their critiques. It’s like when students post a blog entry or a picture to Facebook; they want feedback from others, right? The same is true with student work. Student feedback, not just the corrective input from teachers, motivates students to write often and write well.