Giving Compass' Take:

• Janice Walton explores the importance of sharing students' learning and their work based on personal experiences from teachers and educators. 

• Encouraging children to express themselves and share their work has proven success, how can we measure data on how it impacts life outside the classroom?

• Read more about reasons students should share their work.

“It felt awesome sharing my work! I know that others care about what I am doing at school.” This is a quote from my student, “Ben” (“Ben” is a pseudonym). He was reflecting upon a poem he shared, which was one of the final products of an 8-week long project centered around the driving question: “How can we, as poets, share our stories with our Lake Elementary community?”

Through readings of literature, as well as informational text, students were introduced to what inspires people to write. As a grade-level team, we all wanted our 4th graders to embrace a love of reading and writing at the start of the year. After analyzing a novel, researching and writing about what inspires famous poets to write, students began to think about what inspires them to write poetry. The final investigation of the project was writing original poems, focusing on the word and phrase choice and adding punctuation for effect. Students also wrote a formal presentation explaining why they wrote their original poem. They then held a Poetry Gala that was open to the community and their families where they read their poems and presentations.

Read the full article about teachers sharing students learning by Janice Walton at Getting Smart.