Photojournalism, Author(s): Melissa Morris - This learning experience fits into the ELA curriculum and can become content specific if the teacher chooses to adapt it in that way. It ties in with a variety of subject areas and can be utilized more than once in a school year to arrive at different goals and/or objectives.

New York State Academy for Teaching and Learning

LEARNING EXPERIENCE OUTLINE

TITLE OF THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE: Photojournalism by Melissa Morris

1. LEARNING CONTEXT
ELA 1-1: Listening and reading to acquire information and understanding involves collecting data, facts, and ideas; discovering relationships, concepts, and generalizations; and using knowledge from oral, written, and electronic resources.

ELA 1-2: Speaking and writing to acquire and transmit information requires asking, probing, and clarifying questions, interpreting information in one's own words, applying information from one context to another, and presenting the information and interpretation clearly, concisely, and comprehensibly.

MST 1-1: Information technology is used to retrieve, process, and communicate information and as a tool to enhance learning.

This learning experience fits into the ELA curriculum and can become content specific if the teacher chooses to adapt it in that way. It ties in with a variety of subject areas and can be utilized more than once in a school year to arrive at different goals and/or objectives.

Students need a basic knowledge of the computer and how to navigate through the technology.

2. PROCEDURE
1) Ask students to Think-Pair and name materials they "read" that contain words and pictures. (ex. newspapers, magazines, books, etc.) Have the pairs Share their ideas to the class. 2) Show a picture of a happy or sad person. Have the students identify the emotion and explain that a picture can express an emotion better than words: "A picture is worth a thousand words". Tray a few pictures and have the students come up with a caption to go with it. 3) Explain that a photo essay is a story told in pictures with short statements (captions) under each picture. Using the computer presenter, visit the LIFE magazine Website (http://www.life.com) and have some hard copies on hand to show students examples of photo essays. Have the students Think-Pair what ideas they have about a photo essay, and then have them Share those ideas with the class. Discuss any misunderstandings or questions. 4) Use PowerPoint to develop a whole class photo essay. Have some graphics scanned, some from digital camera, and some from the web (if possible) to illustrate how to incorporate pictures from a variety of sources. Choose a focus that will interest the students and lend itself to modeling the steps. (ie-A Day at My School, or The Peacable Classroom) Explain that the students will be developing their own presentations in groups and later present them to the class. Discuss that each student will need to come up with 2-3 pictures with accompanying captions. 5) prior to allowing students to begin the assignment break them into groups. This can be completed in whatever way the teacher feels is appropriate. After the groups are formed, briefly discuss the principles of teamwork and how the class can troubleshoot potential team problems. Develop a system that can be used when things go awry. 6) Discuss with the teams the directions for completing their photo essay. Explain the general rubric that you are beginning with and have the students fill in the missing information. If there is information they do not understand or agree with, discuss it and make changes if necessary. 7) Rotate the teams through a teacher station to learn about scanning, digital camera, and getting pictures from the Internet. While the teacher is working with the groups the other students can be working on their photo essays. (***NOTE: All scanning and digital camera work is to be done or directly supervised by an adult) 8) Send a letter home to the parents explaining the photo essay. This way parents may be able to add to the teams resources for pictures. If students have a difficult time thinking of a topic/title for their essay, you might want to list suggestions from a class discussion. 9) When teams have completed their photo essay have them present to the class their PowerPoint presentations. The teacher will utilize the rubric at this time to give immediate feedback on the student work. Students will also complete a survey or rubric on how their team worked together on the project.

3. INSTRUCTIONAL/ENVIRONMENTAL MODIFICATIONS
Instructional-This experience is easily adaptable to many levels and abilities. Due to the fact that much of this experience is completed in a group, it can automatically compensate for many potential problems. Group members can become readers or scribes when necessary. They can also use each other for troubleshooters of problems incurred. Environmental-If computers are not available this learning experience can still be easily completed by having students create a hard copy version. They can look at hard copies of LIFE magazine, cut, and paste pictures from magazines, drawings, and photographs. It can be bound in a magazine or book format or it can be presented on a story/poster board format.

4. TIME REQUIRED
Planning-roughly 2-3 hours to collect the pictures for the models and pull things together for lesson. Implementation-this experience will take 2-3 weeks for groups to complete. Some students may choose to take traditional photos at home and bring them in to be scanned, if that happens film-processing time must be considered. Assessment-this will be part of the presentation process, so it should take roughly 10-15 minutes per group.

5. RESOURCES
Students-computer with Internet access, PowerPoint, digital camera, scanner, magazines, photos, and any other resources for pictures available. Teacher-computer with Internet access, computer presenter, PowerPoint, digital camera, scanner.

6. ASSESSMENT PLAN
Groups will be assessed on their PowerPoint photo essays and presentations. They will reflect on their work as a team but not graded. Individuals will be assessed on their individual contributions in the photo essay and presentation. Both group and individual will be assessed using the same basic rubric. (***NOTE: The rubric below is the teacher's base rubric prior to student involvement)

7. STUDENT WORK

8. REFLECTION
In future use of this Learning Experience more advanced concepts may be added; for instance-Interviewing, Reporting on an issue, or Survey information. These skills can be added or taught throughout a unit with this learning experience as the culminating activity. As it is written it appears very broad and groups may find it difficult settling on a topic. If it is tied to a unit that may become easier, however, the photo essays may not be as original.

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