Turning Photographs Into Writing Jan Arrington

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!

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)

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

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

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?

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?

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)

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

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.

Example of Photo Editing:

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

Works Cited Nagin, Carl (2003). Because Writing Matters. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Jacobson Harris, Frances (2002). School Library Media Research Journal. 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

A picture is worth a thousand words! (Unknown)