While not every piece of writing can be published, it is important to let students publish some of their work, especially ones that are important to them. I always seem to decide when it is a good time for the class to publish, and how to publish.
I was reading The Write Tools - Greiner and she suggested allowing students to choose how they would like to publish. Here are some of her and my ideas for what that might look like in my classroom.
Post in classroom
Post on board in hall
Add to a published collection of student work on bookshelf
Post on blog
Include snippets in newsletter
With the right guidelines I think some of these publishing options would be very alluring to young writers. We'll see!