This e-mail message, copied from the wcenter archives, was posted by Muriel Harris on October 12, 1998.
Jennifer, thanks for starting this thread. I've gotten some great ideas for future projects to decorate our walls. We have a section designated for our ESL students (where all the ESL books are and a computer with some CD-ROM programs for ESL use loaded on to the computer), and on the walls around that area are posters from countries where our ESL students tend to come from (China, Japan, Korea, India, etc.). Check the Web for the U.S. Govt. embassies, and you'll see all the addresses for every country with embassies in the U.S.. Then send them letters explaining that you want posters of their countries in your center so that students can view them. We've gotten some great freebie posters that way, and students from those countries stop to look at sights they recognize from home.
We also have signs with "writerly" sayings (e.g., "I never know what I think until I see what I write."), pictures of tutors on a bulletin board, and in a back area where the peer tutors hang out, everyone writes all over the walls...sayings, witticisms, etc. So far, the administration hasn't found out about our writing wall, but everyone loves it and thinks long and hard about what they're going to contribute. Keep a set of colored felt-tip pens around to encourage creativity if you're inclined to try this (and aren't visited regularly by bureaucrats who might take a dim view of such stuff).
Mickey
Mickey Harris
harrism@omni.cc.purdue.edu