Think outside the box with a yearbook comment box

Something as simple as a shoebox or a large envelope can be an excellent way to collect relevant and useful information for your yearbook pages and save your staff hours of research.

That’s what happened for my yearbook staff and me at Moravian Academy when we came up with the idea of the comment box. My staff and I used our comment box to collect memories and quotes from the senior class that were then featured on the Senior Memory Page.

When creating your box, identify what your question or prompt will be; it can be about a game, school musical, current trend, or anything else. Type up the question and tape it onto the box. To make it even more appealing, assign one of your staff members the job of decorating it so it catches students’ attention and promotes yearbook awareness!

It is important to put the box in an accessible place. We put it in the student lounge so students spent their free periods contributing their ideas and feedback. Provide a supply of pens and paper to make it easy for students to participate as they pass by in the hallway or sit down in the lounge.

The incentive for your classmates to contribute to the comment box is that their direct quotes can be featured on the spreads. Your staff will benefit immensely from this system, because it will supply content for the yearbook pages that will add a unique touch and directly reflect the students’ experiences.