Today during an afterschool training, I was reminded of the importance of co-creation of anchor charts.

Anchor charts are used as reference in the classroom. A quick search on Pinterest will reveal beautifully made anchor charts with perfect handwriting and beautiful images. Etsy even has sellers who will make anchor charts for you for a pretty price. Teachergram shares images of perfectly constructed anchor charts.

With all these “perfect” images of anchor charts, it is easily to overlook the co-creation part of anchor charts. When students are part of the creation of anchor charts it reveals learning in real-time. There is ownership over the language on the anchor charts because the students helped create them.

I guarantee when making anchor charts in real-time with students, they will not be picture-perfect. This is ok because learning is rarely picture-perfect. It is messy. It is a non-linear process. Our learning artifacts, including anchor charts, should reveal this process.