Look at this picture and answer these questions on a piece of paper;
label it with your name and title it "Process Intro Questions."
Who are these people, where are they?
Where did they come from, where were they born?
Did they pose for this picture?
How do you know?
How do they know each other?
When do you think this photo was taken?
Who took it?
What did they do after the picture was taken?
What title would you give this photo?

This Webquest is divided into five parts. Each part has a computer component and at least one hands-on materials component (teams not on computer will continue with other tasks). Each part make take more than the two-hour afterschool class.

PART I A. To get us started, I searched the web for "Photo Essay." I chose these three for our first exercise. Discover what a photoessay is by checking out the following three internet photoessays. Spend at least ten or fifteen minutes per site to fully explore them.

http://www.horizonmag.com/3/nmphotoessay.html a photoessay of a place called Auburn Avenue.

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/photoessay.htma photoessay about the Great Depression.

http://ridgwaydb.mobot.org/mobot/madagascar/default.aspa photoessay about a faraway country.

Answer the questions on Worksheet 1 for one of these sites.

B. Write a brief description of a photograph you have never seen before (supplied); Pose for a digital photo; remember to bring in photographs from home.

C. In the classroom with Ms. Koopman, practice the concepts of overlapping, outlining, layering, rubber stamping, etc.
 
 

Part II A. Watch Ms. Koopman as she demonstrates some very basic Photoshop operations using digital portraits. Follow along on the step-by-step guidesheet (one student read aloud.)

B. Look at historical photos (on paper) create a list of guidelines/questioning strategies for discovering their meaning. Here are some activities for looking at photos and generating questions.

List qualities and characteristics possessed in each photograph to create an analyzing photographs worksheet. Take five minutes to write your ideas on index cards, then share, brainstorm and record on poster paper; one team can then enter the list into the computer and print it as a study guide.
 
 

Part IIIALook at what has come before: practice looking at and writing about the work of photojournalists and discovering what their purposes and intents were. This site will give you a basic introduction http://www.escambia.k12.fl.us/schscnts/patc/photographers_webquest.htm

Then, research on the Internet for work of historical photographers producing photo essays. Each group will choose one of the prominent photojournalists below and research their lives, work, inspiration, interesting facts about their lives, and how they influenced others. Prepare a report to the rest of the class, using the worksheet as a guide (Worksheet 2). 

Edward Steichen: http://masters-of-photography.com/S/steichen/steichen.html

Imogene Cunningham: http://masters-of-photography.com/C/cunningham/cunningham.html

Walker Evans: http://masters-of-photography.com/E/evans/evans.html

Margaret Bourke-White: http://masters-of-photography.com/B/bourke-white/b-w.html

Ansel Adams: http://masters-of-photography.com/A/adams/adams.html

Dorothea Lange: http://masters-of-photography.com/L/lange/lange.html

Read Chapter 1 of the book Restless Spirit. http://www.elizabethpartridge.com/story_rs.html

B. design cover of journal using digital portrait and marbleized paper.

PART IV A Watch Ms. Koopman show more basics of photoshop techniques; see how to scan family photos; manipulate your photo in Photoshop.

B.Look at these photographs on-line and practice your looking and writing skills .

http://nuevaschool.org/~debbie/library/cur/20c/turn/artifacts/1b.html

Downtown Underground, Archaeological Clues to Tucson’s Past. Arizona Historical Society, Tucson Arizona. Chapters 10 and 11, pages 68, 69, 71. http://www.rio-nuevo.org/rionuevo/news/teachers_manual.htm part 5, download to pdf
 

C.Look at the historical photographs displayed in the classroom. Brainstorm ideas to a incite a spontaneous critical discussion of them. Choose one photograph. Write down the headings: who, what, when, where, and how, and write a few words for each heading. After everyone reads aloud their wwwwh, each student will edit their entries and expand them to a paragraph each. Combine and compose these paragraphs into an essay about the photograph. Remember that we have only the photograph, and our paragraphs and essays will be built on inference, conjecture, guessing, imagination, making-up, and creativity.

Primary source: A direct record left behind from the period or by the people who are the subject of the historian's study. It may be a document in print (e.g. letter, diary, speech, or newspaper article); an image (e.g. photograph, painting, political cartoon, map, chart, graph); broadcast media (e.g. movie or television show clip, radio broadcast); or artifact (e.g. tool, apparatus).

What qualities make the primary source of a photograph an effective story-telling tool?
 
 

Part V-AApply questioning strategies to family photos. Conduct a session of writing practice, using final photos as inspiration. Student tells a story through their photographs: create a photo essay. Writing, proofreading, correcting. Prepare for display

Use the following questions at the completion of the writing to begin the revising stage of the process:

• Does my draft give a vivid image of each picture?
• Did I use sensory details?
• Did I organize my thoughts well?
• Students will work with a partner to do peer revising and proofreading.