Photographs-What do they mean to you?
I take pictures to admire, document, edit, remember, and share. I don’t take pictures to make a living but many do. I’ve never thought about selling a photo I've taken because they usually are quick shots taken on my IPhone. When buying photos people look for color, angle, elements, scenery, and connection. Yes, connection. We spend our lives in search for people, places, and things that we connect to and find meaning in. There are different types of connections, how do you define one?
My personality thrives when I can relate to someone or something I'm doing. Most people itch to tell stories and share their links. For example, in college someone tells you they have been to Fairfield. You immediately want to spit out a plethora of words about how you live there, know the best restaurants (Colony Grill, Firehouse Deli, Brick and Wood), and brag about how John Mayer went to the same high school as you. I could also pull out my phone, pull up my camera roll and or instagram to show the hundreds of pictures I have of beach sunsets, leaves in the fall, or trees covered with snow. Both would tell a story and share my connection, just with different angles, approaches, detail, and craft.
I take photos because society tells me to. Who is society and what are they telling me?
Society is my generation, who are locked into screens and social media. There are no voices telling me to take pictures but my gut tells me I should. I’ll go as far as asking a stranger to hold my phone while we pose, just to have it! Sometimes i’ll post on Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, or Twitter. The rest of the time it just sits there in my camera roll. Yet every time I get the notification I’m low on storage, I can never delete pictures. I always think, “oh i’ll use this one time, someone will ask for this, or it’s just too cute.” It’s because pictures tell a story, a story that can be told through words or writing. The song Photograph by Nickelback is linked above. Listen to the lyrics and note your emotions and thoughts.
The Race For The Camera, Elijah Ketchum says,"Pictures are the most shared type of media on the internet. Nothing else comes close. They tell stories that words can’t. They document our memories. There’s billions of pictures being shared every day." Ketchum delves into the various applications that users choose to share photos on for very different reasons. What makes you post on one of these over the other? Think Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter...
The resemblance between learning to write and the power of photography:
There is a connection between writing a story and taking a photo, telling a story and sharing a photo. A few words that come to mind when I think of those two are:
detail, meaning, audience, visualize, style. All of those words are a part of the vocabulary I use everyday when teaching my 2nd grade writers.
Here's how...
Both writing and photography are centered on creativity. In order to become an expert in either, you need to learn, practice, and troubleshoot. Learning to write especially in the early stages, revolves around the writing process. Something so unique about writing is that there are so many forms and reasons we do it. Whether it's an opinion piece about the best places to travel or an informational piece on different breeds of dogs, they are all unique with their craft, structure, detail, audience, and style. The same goes for photography, think of landscape, still-life, portrait, abstract, black and white, the list goes on and on.
Teachers can use photos and the act of photography to enhance student writing in many different ways. It can be helpful in all different stages of the writing process. Lucy Calkins, author of Teaching Writing, names the writing process as: "rehearsal, drafting, revision, and editing," (page 29). These stages can include different types of lessons depending on the age and type you are teaching (narrative, opinion, informational, poetry). Calkins emphasizes the importance of engaging students from the beginning to foster interest and love for writing. I highly recommend reading her book that focuses on the magic of writing workshop in the classroom.
Read about how the NYT created a collection of images to inspire writing and discussion.
How To Teach With Our Picture Prompts (and Other Images)
Pictures can be used to teach students to enhance detail through observations, comparing, and noticing elements of different photos. A teacher may choose to post a photo on the board and ask students to write as many questions possible about it, this lesson can be focused on clearing up confusion. Students often sketch to plan writing on paper, a teacher may ask students to bring in a photo to spark ideas. Labeling photos, most often encouraged in primary grades, can segue into lessons on organization and structure.
Photography can help students build an identity as a writer, Amy Ellerman writes, "Before we can write, we have to believe that we have something to say and someone to say it to." Using real life inspiration, essential tools (writing notebooks), and finding the correct mood can boost student writing and engagement. Fletcher shares that, ""Mood is not just a consideration for photos, it’s equally important when you’re writing...“Mood is the glue that holds all the arts together,” says Trevor Bryan, author of The Art of Comprehension (2019)."" Our identity consists of the way we talk, look, think, express ourselves, and act. We express our identity through pictures, videos, tangible items, art, books, symbols and more. As master's students, we have learned the different forms of literacy and how they are connected. Watch below as an English teacher presents ways to get students speaking, thinking, and writing about pictures.
Most of us live multiple lifestyles, for example mine are: graduate student, second grade teacher, and young adult. As a student, I learn virtually. As a teacher, I teach virtually. As a young adult, I connect and communicate virtually. The Coronavirus has enhanced the ways we rely on technology to learn, teach, connect and communicate. It's no lie, the world is going virtual.
How have you adapted? Can you see yourself using photography to teach, if so, how?
Sources:
Calkins, Lucy. Teaching Writing. Heinemann, 2020.
https://elijahketchum.com/the-race-for-the-camera-a447b59bc5f6
https://www.heinemann.com/products/e10917.aspx
https://twowritingteachers.org
Images have been used at multiple points in my education. When I was in elementary school the art teachers had a program called "Learning to Look." They would project works of art and we would do the best we could to notice and talk about what was in the dark images. We often missed most of the details simply because we couldn't see them with the technology we were using.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a junior in high school and schools were equipped with Promethean boards, my AP Language and Composition teacher had us analyze and respond to pictures as a daily practice. The focus in elementary school was on noticing and describing what we were looking at. The focus in high school was to delve deeper into the photographer's message and the meaning behind the images.
These were interesting and valuable lessons that taught me how to use my own words in the absence of someone else's. I believe I worked harder to piece together the meaning behind the images I was shown in high school than I did when finding the meaning in text. In text, the author gives you words to work with. They're telling the reader, and I as the reader told my teacher. But with photographs, the image showed me something. I had to make the jump from showing to telling on my own.
A lot of the lessons provided by the readings for this week were geared towards secondary students. As an elementary school reading intervention teacher, I wondered how I could use pictures with my students. So far we have used pictures to support or decode the text. They work with text to give us more information. For my English Language Learner students who are just going over their reading basics, they memorize repeated sight words in a book and then use the picture to decode the rest. For example, in a book called "Bird Colors," every page started with, "This bird is" and then listed a color shown by a picture of a bird. The students could memorize "This bird is" and fill in the next word by looking at the picture. Pictures provide them with information that was hard to gain from text.
The video you provided at the end of your post is very interesting to me. I believe I can use the teacher's strategies and the tools on his website to help my English Language Learners create their own words. So far I have focused on them as emerging readers. The strategies in the video would help them develop as emerging writers.
Thank you for writing this post!
Hi Amanda,
ReplyDeleteImages are an empowering tool to add to a student's literacy "toolbox", a way to encourage deep thinking and reflections on meaning and language. We are living in a much more visual world, and embracing images as part of instruction invites students to think more critically about what they see, and what they are driven to create, like the question you shared: "What makes you post one of these over the other?"
I related most to the part of your post that links photography with developing an identity and expressing oneself, as we guide our students to do with writing. As Amy Ellerman noted in one of the articles for this week, "Sometimes the entry point to seeing ourselves as writers doesn't come from writing at all." What great motivation to expand our idea of written expression - images always help me recall detail, connections, and memories that would enrich my writing. It is a great way to help students find their own voice and identity and tell their stories. Thanks for your ideas on how to do this in the classroom and the motivation to do more of it!
I think the connection you made between writing and photography holds a lot of truth. You put it so well by stating, “both writing and photography are centered on creativity.” Integrating these two forms of creativity and self expression could create very meaningful and engaging learning experiences for students. I also agree that photography can help students express their identity, which can then translate into their own unique author’s craft. As I was reading the section of your blog post about photography and students’ identities as writers, I found myself thinking about how inspiring it can be to have students decorate the outside of their writer’s notebooks with photographs. Many teachers, including myself, have their students do this at the beginning of the year, and I think it’s so important not to lose sight of the “why”. Sure, it’s a fun activity that gets students excited about writing in their notebooks, but it can be SO much more than just that. Teachers can emphasize this connection between photography and storytelling with their students as a part of the lesson. I think that integrating photography into writing lessons will give students meaningful motivation to write their own narratives.
ReplyDelete-Colleen k.
I love the connection between photography and writing. As I see young writers developing their craft you notice the differences in writing ability. Sometimes students who are grasping at their written work can find an incredible influx of ideas when they are supported by photography and illustrations. I have seen many cases where a student who is unconfident in writing finds inspiration from the photos and illustrations they have chosen to accompany it. With the technology that most schools have access to I can definitely see more photography being incorporated into written work. Giving students who may struggle with writing a better way to access and express their ideas.
ReplyDeleteHi Amanda!
ReplyDeleteI loved your post. I think you did a great job connecting with the topic. It's crazy to think how we don't even hesitate to take pictures to document moments. I connected with you when you mentioned that you'll go as far as to ask a stranger to take a photo with you and your friends! I have done that so many times . It was awkward at first but when it became such a widely accepted thing to do I stopped thinking about the awkwardness and do it now without hesitation. I love how it connects with teaching that we as a society are constantly evolving. Even now with the corona virus we are using photographs more than ever to have students hand in their work or to show something they did over the weekend. I have so many students whose parents send in a picture to my email for their share on Monday! Pictures have become part of every day life and we now thrive off of expression through pictures! Nice job! :)
Hi Amanda,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your blog post. Your passion for photography was clear throughout. I connected with you when you wrote about how your camera roll is full of photos, to the point where you have no storage left, but you cannot delete any of them. I do the same thing; I also lean on casual photography to document moments, memories, and express creativity. While I have not had a lot of experience using photography to inspire or teach writing, your blog post opened my eyes to how beneficial this can be in the classroom. I hope to use this strategy in the future, to further motivate students to write. Thank you for sharing!
-Shawna Z
Hi Amanda!
ReplyDeleteYour post was great! and provided so many helpful connections. Photography is so important when it comes to story telling because a picture is worth a 1,000 words no matter what language you speak. You don't have to know how to read to tell or understand a story told with a photo, it is such a universal medium. I love taking pictures, mostly of the people and things that I love. I feel lucky that we have the technology to so easily capture a moment. I like being able to look back on memories that are special to me and how it can bring me right back into the exact moment as if I were living it again. I really hope to use story telling through photos in my classroom as much as possible, it can be such a helpful strategy for all types of learners. Good job :)
-Grace
Hi Amanda,
ReplyDeleteI really liked how you emphasized how we can say so much with just a photo. Whether it is through a post on social media or a picture on our whiteboards, they both start a conversation. Often times, I suggest that a gallery walk should be used at the start of a lesson to get students' ideas about the photos at hand. I also liked your idea of having the students bring in photos about a lesson; I think that may be even more beneficial to have the students to sort of create their own version of a gallery walk based off their research.
I think images are very powerful. I think the quote is something along the lines of a "picture is worth a thousand words." That is so true whenever you post something. Whether the pictures convey positive or negative thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI really like to use images in my lesson plans. I think they are very powerful. I love to use them during the Great Depression unit. It is sometimes hard for me to licit anything out of the students when they are looking at pictures though. I think it may come from the fact that they are often afraid that they aren't going to get the right answer. When I ask them how the picture makes them feel, often they do not say anything.
I agree and relate to so much of what you wrote. I enjoy using pictures in a variety of my lessons in my classroom. We do a lot of photo analysis types of assignments where students are asked to analyze a picture and then respond based on their observations. Pictures help students imagine what time periods look like and also help them to build on their analysis/critical thinking skills as well especially when asked to analyze a picture. I think images are a powerful tool that can be used in the classroom and help to support learning in a variety of ways.
ReplyDeleteHi Amanda!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this post because I definitely a photo can speak a thousand words. With a photo, it can help many different types of learners in your classroom. I try to use political cartoons in my classroom for social studies because it allows the students to think critically and outside the box to formulate interesting ideas on a specific topic rather than just reading something in the textbook or just words on a slide. I also try to incorporate actual photos of historical documents and events as well for similar reasons. Not only does photography in a classroom help learners, but also sparks good classroom discussion.
Hi Amanda!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this post because I definitely a photo can speak a thousand words. With a photo, it can help many different types of learners in your classroom. I try to use political cartoons in my classroom for social studies because it allows the students to think critically and outside the box to formulate interesting ideas on a specific topic rather than just reading something in the textbook or just words on a slide. I also try to incorporate actual photos of historical documents and events as well for similar reasons. Not only does photography in a classroom help learners, but also sparks good classroom discussion.
Hi Amanda,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed dealing this post because I too never touch my pictures when I run out of storage on my phone! It’s almost like hoarding. I think it is important to hold onto pictures because pictures are worth 1000 words but also hold infinite emotions and memories. I love showing students pictures on “Get to Know Me” presentations and in general while teaching (even though I am just interning). I have always been a visual learner and I think pictures can do something that words just can’t. I love using images as a way to start a conversation or a new topic and have students point aspects of a picture out and share to the class what they see. It’s very interesting what students will say and ask questions about without any written “context clues.” Thank you again for this post!
~Chaisen