258: The Power of Centering Student Exemplars

The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast

Jennifer Gonzalez

Education, Teaching, Instruction, Classroommanagement, Educationreform

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 31 August 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sometimes the best instructional materials are sitting right in our classrooms. At a time when AI threatens to make human writing obsolete, using students' own work as a teaching tool offers a wonderfully authentic alternative. In this episode, educator Marcus Luther joins me to share four ways he uses student exemplars to teach craft lessons, build student confidence, practice giving feedback, and foster a much-needed sense of belonging.

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Thanks to Solution Tree and The School Me Podcast for sponsoring this episode. To read Marcus's post and see photos of these practices in his classroom, visit cultofpedagogy.com/student-exemplars.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is Jennifer Gonzalez, welcoming you to episode 258 of the Cult of Pedag that I really love this episode.
0:30.9	Most of what I share on this podcast is ultimately meant to improve learning in schools.
0:35.6	And while that's true of today's topic, I feel like there's
0:38.7	something else there too. It's a small set of practices that can make your classroom feel more
0:43.9	special, that will make your students feel more seen. We're talking about using student exemplars,
0:51.1	which is just a fancy term for student work as part of our instructional toolbox.
0:56.4	When my guest, Marcus Luther, first suggested writing a post about this, I thought it sounded
1:01.1	fine. I used models of student work in my own teaching too, and they worked well. But then I read
1:06.9	his post and realized there was something more elevated about the way he used them.
1:12.2	I feel like I say this a lot, or maybe I just think it a lot, but I still think one of the most
1:17.5	incredible aspects of teaching is the rare and special opportunity teachers get every day
1:23.2	to just be in a room with other humans at such pivotal moments in their lives. I think we lose
1:29.5	sight of how special that is all the time, mostly because it can be such a grind. But when we
1:35.3	build practices into our routines that make us stop and notice the people right in front of us,
1:40.9	that helps us get more out of it. The practices we talk about today could do that for you.
1:47.4	This is Marcus's third time on the podcast. He was on episode 186 where he talked about gallery
1:53.3	walks with student poetry and episode 213 where he shared a thoughtful practice for student
1:59.2	reflection that he called learning stories.
2:02.4	At this point, I know when he shows up in my inbox with something he wants to share,
2:06.7	it's going to be really good. And this third go-around is no different.
2:11.1	Marcus's use of student exemplars accomplishes a few things.
2:15.4	One, it provides an authentic human counterbalance for the presence of
	...

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