Activities for Building Community in Middle School
Back to School Community-Building for Middle School
Today I’ll share my #1 must-have activity for the first week of school. This is the activity that, for me, is an absolute, must-have task during the early days of the school year.
Stay tuned for my next post, which will include more back to school activities as well as classroom management tips to help it all go smoothly.
Why start with community?
Regardless of the subject or grade level, I begin each year with one primary goal in mind: building a classroom community where students feel both seen and safe. This is one of those things that’s really easy to say and much more complex to deliver. But without it, students can’t learn.
In order to learn at all, we must feel safe.
Learning creatively is next-level: by definition, being creative means doing something out of the ordinary - and middle schools and junior highs are often the LAST place where anyone wants to look or feel different.
If they are going to take creative risks, students must feel supported by their teachers and their peers.
Building Community with a Low-Stakes Introduction to the Creative Process:
This activity can work for any assignment with a personal component.
In Math, students might create a visual metaphor to share what kind of a Mathematics learner they are. In Science or Social, they can make connections between course content (past or upcoming) and their own lives.
What I’m going to share here is the method I use to introduce the creative process to kids and simultaneously build classroom community.
Our goal in this lesson is to get kids talking to new classmates and taking very small creative risks while being introduced to key components of the creative process. We’re dipping a toe in, so-to-speak! In my classroom, students continue to engage in similar work throughout the year, throughout a variety of topics and in a variety of media.
The product students create can be almost anything, as long as they have the freedom to create unique pieces (this won’t work nearly as well with an “everyone makes the same piece of art” kind of task). If you’re not sure what product students might create to introduce your own course, please send me an email and I’ll be glad to help you out!
Are you thinking, “Okay Great- but what are YOUR students creating?”
As I write this, it’s mid-July, and school doesn’t start until the very end of August. So I have some time to iron out the exact details for this year. But I like to use this process for visual pieces in Art or ELA, with an emphasis on simile/metaphor.
I’ve used the picture book Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox by Danielle Daniel as a spark for this activity in the past, and had students create animal portraits of themselves. One year we created 3D masks based on their metaphors. Another year, I opened the assignment up and let students choose anything they wanted for their metaphors, and we illustrated them in watercolor. But you can use my method for any creative piece.
Here’s exactly what to do:
STEP 1: Provide a simple outline of the task at hand.
What is the product students are making? In the example I’ve given, I’d tell students they needed to create a simile or metaphor to represent themselves, and that we’ll ultimately be creating art pieces to illustrate those metaphors.
STEP 2: Ideation/Brainstorming:
Students often default to their first viable ideas. To push them further, have your students list as many ideas as they can, perhaps even within a timed competition. During ideation, emphasize quantity over quality. Sometimes, a terrible idea leads us to our best idea!
STEP 3: Feedback Round One
Pair students randomly or have them “speed date.” Make sure they learn their partners’ names if they haven’t already. If you like, you can provide prompts to help them get to know each other before they begin giving more formal feedback.
During Feedback Round 1, each student shares their list of ideas, and their partner chooses their top 2 or 3 favorites.
They might also extend ideas or suggest new ideas, but this should feel easy. We can push them after we build their confidence and help them feel at home!
Rotate or switch partners so everyone meets with at least three other students.
STEP 4: Prototyping
Students create drafts of their final product. In my example, they’d be creating sketches of their metaphors.
Limit time so students can’t actually finish their drafts. When NO ONE is finished, and no one has a perfect piece, the stakes are low as students move into another round of feedback. Stopping early also means students aren’t as likely to have become attached to their creations, making them more open to the feedback they’ll receive.
STEP 5: Feedback Round Two
Make sure students work with different peers than they did in Round 1. Again, you might provide get-to-know-you prompts as students meet new people.
Two Stars & a Wish works nicely here - students tell their partners two things they like about their drafts, and provide one very gentle suggestion. You may want to give some examples of feedback that pertain to the project your students are working on to increase the quality of their feedback.
Have a kindness conversation before you begin. I always remind students that sharing our work, even in draft form, can feel vulnerable and scary, and that we need to be extra kind and gentle during these conversations. They’re usually happy to agree to this, as they know they’ll be receiving feedback too!
STEP 6: Final product creation
This step depends almost entirely on the task you’ve set out for students. This is where they make it happen!
STEP 7: Sharing & Connecting:
Don’t tell students about this step until they are ready to do it. If you do, they’ll create things they already know they have in common, and you’ll end up with a whole bunch of very similar pieces.
If the task is visual, I like to have students do a gallery walk to see each other’s pieces.
While they walk, ask each student to find at least three other students with common interests or personality traits.
You can provide a similar prompt that aligns with the product you’ve asked them to create; just keep in mind that finding common ground with classmates is the goal here. Students can use sticky notes to leave messages beside each other’s work. They love returning to their own work to see who’s left them a note!
Heads-up: you can’t have anyone left out here. To make sure everyone’s work is seen and attended to, ask students to find a piece of work and sit until everyone’s ready to move on, and then switch. Require students to find something relatable in each piece. This way, everyone gets the same amount of comments.
If you want to take this step further, you can put the final pieces up and give students pieces of yarn to make the connections physically. Neatly display some of their sticky notes around the edges and you’ve got a beautiful bulletin board for Meet the Teacher Night!
STEP 8: Wrap-Up
I like to close by asking students how many of them discovered something in common that surprised them, or made a connection with someone new. This helps to validate the activity if they did feel uncomfortable - and despite our best efforts, they might. It’s a brand new year!
Like what you see here?
I post every other week, so stay tuned for more! In the meantime, please check out the free guides to teaching Art and integrating the Arts & SEL into core subjects! You can find them here.
