Guiding Students to Get Creative With Graphic Design Tools

There’s often an assumption that students are familiar with technology and are fully capable of using it to research, compose, and produce. The truth is, many struggle to utilize these tools effectively, and it can be daunting to build student confidence in navigating and using common apps. While I often give students the opportunity to work with their hands and create physical products, I also think it’s essential to teach them to use online graphic design tools that are transferable to academics, work and careers, and personal life.

There are numerous benefits to using online tools when the technology is available. The shareability of the product means that I can quickly provide feedback to students as they work, engaging the writing and drafting process in real time. When students cannot be in the physical classroom space, this element is a critical part of engaging the writing process from afar.

Using online tools can also support the practice of several skills across subject areas and domains. Through written components, students can build skills in critical writing, revision, and citation. The visual elements of design allow students to engage in visual analysis, symbolic representation, and spatial awareness.

When the visual and written work together, students have to plan and organize, exercising executive functioning skills. Specific skills can easily be targeted by using competencies, learning objectives, and rubrics—making them highly flexible.

Brochures

Brochures are ideal for students to present research and specific topics. Tools like Canva and Adobe are easy for students to learn and navigate, while free templates for Google Slides allow for scaffolding in a familiar platform with known tools.

These platforms have collaborative capabilities for students to work together and for me to support their work. With brochures, I find that many students are more willing to engage in the writing process, as the chunked-out nature of brochure text is less intimidating than a longer piece such as an essay or research paper.

What I love the most about brochures is that they can be easily printed and shared, allowing for an authentic audience. In my classroom and in the hallways outside my door, I frequently post student brochures for interested passersby, families, and guests to our school building.

You can currently find brochures on the origins and history of disco music from my Black Music Studies course, another about the Work Projects Administration’s Slave Narratives from my Oral Literature course, and even detailed guides to the Harlem Renaissance created by senior English students. All of these brochures include student-generated informational text, citations, and visual art, presented in a polished format and visible to our community.

Collages

Collage projects can be useful for supporting higher-level analysis skills like synthesis and symbolic representation. A successful collage consists of a myriad of elements such as composition, texture, repetition, color, and layering. The complex nature of collages makes them a great tool for supporting student literary analysis, and they’re often an effective format for students who may struggle with analytical writing.

With English students across grade levels, I often employ character collages as a way to reflect on the arc, purpose, and goals of characters in novels and stories. Students are able to focus on a specific element of a narrative, helping to break down complex topics and their interconnectivity.

These can easily be adapted to include targeted English language arts content—such as including a symbol, integrating textual evidence, or considering point of view. I will often ask students to compose writings that reflect, explain, or engage the piece they have created, facilitating an opportunity for supported analytical writing.

I have used character collages in studying everything from Jason Reynolds’s young adult novel Long Way Down to Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, and even Shakespeare’s The Tempest. While I always give students the opportunity to create by hand, online tools like Canva allow for digital creation without mess, supplies, or access to the classroom space. As with digital brochures, I can provide real-time support and feedback and easily print multiple copies of creations to share with students, families, and our school community.

Posters

Posters have always been popular methods of presentation—trifolds and poster boards are common learning artifacts across subject areas. Using digital tools could be beneficial here as well, with websites like Miro, StoryboardThat, Adobe, and Canva. These allow students to make interactive artifacts with access to a myriad of supplemental tools and resources. Students can, of course, add images and text, but they can also add links, videos, and other digital media within their posters. 

I offer posters in many of my classes as an option for students in their summative assessments. Instead of written essays, students can create “visual essays,” using images, colors, shapes, and spatial arrangement to support their written analysis.

I recently had a student who used Miro to map out a novella they were writing for their senior project, keeping their ideas in one place and easily sharing their writing process with others. They could utilize the digital poster, an artifact of their work, in the presentation of their novella, documenting their writing process in a unique and authentic way. Similar to brochures and collages, these posters can be shared in multiple spaces and to multiple people, accessed physically and digitally, and revised and edited.

As tools like these are becoming more common in the workplace, it is important that we support students in learning how to use them effectively and competently. I even share with students how I use them in my own work, walking them through how I plan presentations and create graphic organizers, flyers, and other things they see in class and around school.

While technology can be a challenging part of curriculum design, classroom management, and skill development, online tools provide a unique opportunity for educators. They can facilitate dynamic, creative, and interdisciplinary opportunities to engage with product creation and demonstrate knowledge.