Ugly Anchor Charts

I've noticed an interesting trend in education -beautiful, hand-drawn anchor charts in full color, including illustrations. I see pictures of the lovely works of art on Pinterest on a daily basis. I'm really quite jealous. I can barely draw decent stick figures, and my writing tends to slant without lines.

Prior to the great naming of charts created together by teachers and students, I filled my walls with my ugly charts. The work on depicted the great thinking that my students shared in a lesson. We referred to the charts as a point of reference: "Remember when we discussed XYZ?"

The whole point of an anchor chart is to record our student's thinking and learning. So unless you're an artist, I suspect your anchor charts will not look like a masterpiece of art, but instead, a masterpiece of thinking. Which is more important?

This is why I'm calling for an end to teacher created artwork in the form of anchor charts.I'm not advocating that you give up your colorful chart markers, abandon your doodles (if you're good at doodles), or write messy. I'm suggesting that you give yourself your life back. I know teachers who spend time before and after school making anchor charts (or recreating their ugly charts). Why? What value does it bring to your classroom? How does the beauty of your charts improve your student's learning and thinking?

Perhaps you just like beautiful charts, and that is fine, but remember that the purpose of the chart isn't the beauty of your artwork, but the beauty of your student's thinking.

*I'd love to hear your comments, but please note that I had to change my comments to moderation due to a large amount of inappropriate spam. Thank you for understanding!