The Portfolio content type in WordPress is an excellent way to display class assignments and projects, and eventually finished projects for your personal website.
Portfolio is a built in content type like Pages and Posts. A Portfolio allows you to organize similar projects, like video or writing projects, and then display Portfolios in your main menu or sidebar. You are also able to display a set of Portfolios in a Page or a Post using a WordPress shortcode.
WordPress.com has some excellent resources and tutorials about creating Portfolios and Projects.
If you have a personal domain your theme may also have the Portfolio content type built in. If it doesn’t there are many good portfolio plugins and portfolio themes that have more functionality than WordPress’ built in Portfolio.