Turning Photographs Into Writing

1. Turning Photographs Into Writing Jan Arrington jan.arrington@gcisd.net

2. Overview of the Lesson • Select a photo & write a short story about it. Invent plausible relationships and events that could have taken place before &/or after the photo was taken. (MS Word) • Edit the photo by incorporating something from the story. (Adobe Photoshop) • Publish!

3. Theory Base Cross-Curricular Connection: “Evidence shows that writing performance improves when a student writes often and across content areas.” (Nagin, Because Writing Matters) Image/Writing Connection: Writing stories based on images encourages higher order thinking skills. Students make life connections by conceptualizing a bigger picture. (Harris, School Library Media Research Journal)

4. Theory Base The Importance of Publishing: “Children need to publish, whether by sharing, collecting, or posting their work.” (Graves, Writing: Teachers & Children At Work)

5. What The Student Must Do: • Select a photo. • Visually analyze the photo. • Pre-write in MS Word.

6. Pre-Writing Questions: • What is happening in the photo? • What are the circumstances this photo represents? • How are the people dressed? • What can you observe from the expressions on their faces, posture, position in the photo, etc?

7. Pre-Writing Questions: • Describe the setting. • Is there anything interesting or surprising about the situation in the photo? If yes, how might you explain it? • What plausible relationships/events might have taken place before the photo? • After the photo?

8. What The Student Must Do: • Organize the results of the pre-writing into a draft of a story. Include a title. • Remember story structure: * Characters * Setting * Rising Action/Climax * Resolution * Ending (Jill Haltom, NSTWP Summer, 2004)

9. What The Student Must Do: • Exchange drafts within response groups for revision comments. • Make revisions. • Proofread. • Save the final, revised version.

10. What The Student Must Do: • Edit the photo in Adobe Photoshop to incorporate one or more elements from the story. • Insert into the MS Word document.

11. Example of Photo Editing:

12. Example of Photo Editing:

13. Publishing! • Student work will be published on the GCISD website! • Students may also submit their work to the CHHS “Roaring Red” newspaper. • Other publishing opportunities will be offered to students that are interested.

14. Assessment • Grade draft for evidence of revision comments. • Final, revised story. • Edited photo. • Photo embedded into MS Word document.

15. Application Across Grade Levels • Grades K-4 Allow students to create the story as a group. Use “whimsical” photos. • Grades 5-12 No modifications. NOTE: Instead of photo editing, consider having students draw a picture or create a skit to “tell” their story.

16. Application Across Content Areas • Social Studies/History - Choose photos from a certain country, time period and write about culture, economy, etc. • Science and Math - Choose photos of bridges to study and write about engineering aspects. • Art - Research photos/paintings by a particular photographer or artist.

17. Summary • Students visually analyzed the selected photo. • Students went through the writing process and created a short story about the photo. They supplied a meaningful context, conceptualized a bigger picture. (MS Word) • Students edited the photo by incorporating something from the story. (Adobe Photoshop) • Publication!

18. Works Cited Nagin, Carl (2003). Because Writing Matters. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Jacobson Harris, Frances (2002). School Library Media Research Journal. http://www.ala.org/ Graves, Donald H. Writing: Teachers & Children At Work. Haltom, Jill (2004). Exploring Cultures through Fairytales. Lewisville ISD Lewisville, TX: NSTWP 2004 Carlson, Kathy (2003). Editing Circle Checklist. Irving ISD Irving, TX: NSTWP 2004

19. A picture is worth a thousand words! (Unknown)