Promoting Student Art That Builds Team Spirit
By Katie Durkin
I’ve been a swimmer my whole life. And while many would believe that swimming is mainly an individual sport because you’re trying to beat your own times in your own lane, it is a sport that requires immense teamwork.
One of the summer leagues that I was a part of for many years always cultivated a sense of community. Each year, they would have a t-shirt contest where members of the team would submit their designs for next year’s logo and t-shirts.
Because the team was made up of swimmers ranging from age 5 to 18, there were always myriad design submissions. It was fun every year to sport different colored t-shirts featuring artwork from, oftentimes, young children.
When I became the leader of my 7th grade team last year, I knew I wanted to bring a similar experience to our students. And we have! By cultivating and promoting student creativity, we’ve been able to have their artwork displayed in our common meeting area and on yearly team t-shirts in an effort to build and foster our 7th grade community.
Inviting students and teachers to create community
Coming into a new team with new students and colleagues is always daunting, especially when you want to try something new as a team leader. I knew that I wanted to have students design a t-shirt graphic for the year, but I wanted to make sure that my colleagues were on board first.
I needn’t have worried. Not only did they think it was a great idea, they wanted to see if the students could also come up with a team logo that we could feature on the t-shirt and in our team’s common meeting area.
We set aside time to meet with the students to explain our concept, and then we gave them some time to brainstorm and think of ideas for logo and t-shirt designs. What was great to see was students teaming up to brainstorm ideas together. This gave them a choice of whether they wanted to create a design individually or with a team.
During this time students also decided that they wanted the t-shirt to feature a mascot for the year. While we gave students time in school to discuss their ideas, we set a deadline of one week. That way if a particular artist or designer wanted more time to complete their work, they would have it.
After a week students submitted their final ideas either digitally or in the form of physical drawings to the teachers. We teachers met to narrow down our choices to the top five designs for the team mascot and logo for the t-shirts. What we found was that we not only had amazing ideas for a t-shirt, we also had some amazing student artists we wanted to showcase.
In speaking with the students, we decided to use one of the designs for a team banner which we would display in the team’s common area, and we would use five other designs as our finalists for team mascot and logo.
The teachers set up a Google Form for students to vote on their top choices for the team mascot and logo. We also displayed the different choices for the t-shirt in our meeting area so students could see what the design would look like before they voted on their favorite.
After students voted, we moved on to organizing the ordering of t-shirts and banner.
The nitty gritty of bringing student designs to life
The next layer of this work included how to get the t-shirts and banner made. We were fortunate that our Parent-Teacher Association had a grant we could apply for so we could have the banner made. I knew a vendor who made t-shirts and banners, and I was able to send the banner design through email.
The vendor proofed and fit the design to a 4 ft by 3 ft banner. Not only that, the vendor was able to print it on a material that wouldn’t fade, which would mean we could display our banners for many years!
The vendor was also able to mock up the t-shirt design so students, parents, and guardians were able to see how it looked before they decided to purchase one. I created an order form, sent it home to parents, and set a deadline to return it.
I wasn’t able to tell our families what the final t-shirt price would be because it depended on how many students wanted a t-shirt. I was somewhat concerned that we wouldn’t have enough students ordering to keep the price down, so I was pleasantly surprised when 90% of our team ordered a t-shirt, and they ended up only costing about $11.
The t-shirts arrived quickly, and students were able to wear their t-shirts for various spirit days and for our annual field trip. Our first year was a success!
This year it’s Red Peppers
I was so excited to see that our team of teachers wanted to bring back our community building project for this school year. Much of what we’ve done has remained the same. We collected student artwork for a banner, logo, and team mascot, picked the top designs for a banner and t-shirt, and had the students vote on their favorites.
This year we are the 7th grade Red Peppers. I know this sounds like a silly mascot, but students were so excited about the design. We also decided to add another feature this year. The same vendor who created our banner and t-shirts was able to make individual stickers with the 7 Red Pepper on them.
(Editor’s note: Katie’s school policy does not allow publication of student artwork.)
Image by Pheladi Shai from Pixabay
This year in our weekly team meetings with students and teachers, the teachers have chosen one or more students who they believe represent our team and school well. Each week during the meeting we announce the student (or students) who will be the Pepper of the Week.
It’s another way to foster community and teamwork. Students are excited to see who will be featured each week and have even started nominating their peers.
Another new idea: This year, because the t-shirts were white, a number of our students also had the brilliant idea to tie-dye them. Teachers are currently in the process of planning a day for the students to bring in their team t-shirts, or a plain white t-shirt, to tie dye and then wear on our upcoming field trip.
It was another great suggestion from students to continue bolstering community. While these were two new ideas for this year, they are definitely practices I hope to carry over into next year as well, while we remain open to suggestions from our next group of students too.
My hope is that we continue this practice year after year. I’ve enjoyed seeing our students wear their t-shirts and admire each other’s art pieces in our hallway. It has also been fun to change up how we use student work each year.
Give it a try!
Think about ways you can utilize these ideas in your own space. Not only do you get to spotlight students’ artistic abilities, but all students can have a say in how they want their team to be represented. I can’t wait to continue this new tradition and use student-generated art to bolster team spirit and community for years to come.
Dr. Katie Durkin (@kmerz610) has been teaching middle school students for over a decade, and currently teaches English Language Arts at public Middlebrook School in Wilton, Connecticut, where she is the 7th Grade Team Leader.
Katie is a zealous reader of middle grade and young adult books and enjoys sharing her love and passion for reading with her students. In 2022 she earned her doctorate from Northeastern University, where her dissertation research examined the impact of classroom libraries on middle school students’ reading engagement.
Katie was the 2020 recipient of the Edwyna Wheadon Postgraduate Training Scholarship from the NCTE. She writes regularly for MiddleWeb and in early 2023 launched a podcast, That’s Novel Reading.
