by Carol Relf Kondrat

Created on: February 07, 2011

Bulletin boards by the students are a great focus for the classroom.  The students are always ready to design and contribute to the décor of their classroom.  Such a focal point can be a way to show off their talent and give them ownership of the classroom atmosphere. Being part of creating a learning environment is a challenge that the students will eagerly accept.

 Books are an important part of every content area in the curriculum. Reading is important for learning in every subject. The bulletin board can concentrate on a particular content area or can be open to all subjects.  With such a broad range to choose from, there is a wide variety to stimulate the interest of every reader in the class.  The librarian can provide lists of books that can be found in the school library.  These can be by subject, by genre and categorized by fiction and nonfiction.    

Every student can claim a favorite book that they have read during the year.  Once they have read and chosen their favorite, the students can brainstorm and jot down what makes the book a favorite.  It might be the setting, the characters, the plot, the illustrations or the genre.  Now the students decide what made this book get published.  Their task is to act as the publisher and choose what should be on the cover to hook the readers.  They want their cover to show what is the best part of the book.  They chose the book for a reason.  How can they show this reason by re-designing the book cover. 

The students are to design and make a dust cover for the book they have chosen.  The dust cover is the paper cover that protects the book.  It has four parts for the students to design.  These are the front, the back and the front flap and back flap.  This involves an art lesson and for this, I have had wonderful help from the art teacher.  If an art class is not available, the students can tell what attracted them to the book before they read.  Was it the cover, the author, or the title and the subject?  Again, the students brainstorm and decide what needs to be included in the four parts of the book cover.  They also create, with some teacher guidance, a rubric for the project.  The students then have explicit guidelines for their assignment.   

After the products are completed, the students can choose how to display them.  The bulletin board needs to be attractive to the eye and draw the attention of anyone who enters the classroom.  Again, an art lesson in marketing.  The students want their book cover to show why they chose the book to read and why it became a favorite. The bulletin board of the students’ favorite books can be a teaching tool as well as a display to encourage reading.

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