Over the past year I have been building up a wall in my classroom with a range of Internet inspired cultural artifacts. The aim is to present interesting, thought provoking ideas in a humorous way, using a graphical language that my students are familiar with and respond to (e.g. Internet memes). Although I never promote the site directly to my students, many of the materials are from 9gag.com, which though crude and inappropriate at times, nonetheless provides a wealth of cultural learning opportunities for teachers. Want to understand your students, what interests them, what they are talking about? 9gag is a great place to start.

Click on the image below to see a really large version, allowing you to enjoy the wall in some of its glory.

The result is that, unlike my more traditional boards, students really do stop and look at this one. Often this happens in pairs, and a discussion breaks out as they try and work out a joke or decide if something is serious or not. This might be called teaching by stealth.