Student Contributor: B. Phillips
A Graffiti Wall is a tool used in the classroom to let students share their ideas and opinions. Usually it is a piece of paper on the wall that students can write answers to a question on.
Having a Graffiti Wall in the classroom allows every student’s voice to be heard. Any student can write their answer to a question without getting talked over, ignored, or interrupted. Graffiti Walls also let you avoid the sometimes chaotic process of asking the whole class a question and have students blurt out (or struggle not to blurt out) their answer. When I was in 4th grade, my teacher would put up graffiti walls for all sorts of questions. It usually would be questions about the curriculum to check our understanding, but sometimes it was about other things, like how we felt about our beloved principal retiring or what movie we wanted to watch at the class party. I always liked that you didn’t have to sign your name to it, so whatever you wrote could be as anonymous as you wanted.
I chose to put Graffiti Walls in the supportive phase because it allows students to feel heard, and be exposed to their peers' ideas. This reinforces the idea that the classroom is a community and everyone's opinions and ideas are valid and valuable. It may connect to the preventative phase as it is supposed to make students feel heard and valued. I think it is both student directed and collaborative because it benefits the students by helping them feel heard and their ideas valued, and it also helps teachers understand students better. A teacher can look at a class's graffiti wall and get a quick inventory of how well the class understands a concept or how they feel about something.
More Information –
Tool Source: Facing History website
https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/teaching-strategies/graffiti-boards
