Writing on the walls: Supporting 21st century thinking in the material classroom

Abstract

A school's walls are taken-for-granted spaces, not seen as central to teaching. This article asks: How do teachers facilitate writing on secondary classroom and hallway walls that helps to build rich text environments through texts that are local, material, and multimodal? Further, how are those texts reflective of literacy practices appropriate for the 21st Century, resistant to standardized curriculum, and built on students' literate lives? Findings suggest that teachers used butcher paper, markers, post-its, magnetic tile words, and walls to engage students in 21st Century literacy practices. And, even within a test-focused curriculum, students produced an array of multimodal compositions.