My unit "Photojournalism For Social Change" will be used in my high school journalism class, grades 9 through 12 with intermediate level readers. This unit can be modified to fit any reading level. My class is called "Cultural Journalism," because we explore more than just news stories. We explore the world and the people in it, in as many varied ways as we have time. We read a variety of books including
Friday Night Lights
, written by a journalist who spent a year in Texas to better understand Texas football,
Fahrenheit 451
to look at our future without the first amendment or access to real news, and
In Cold Blood
, journalism as a novel.
We also read a variety of articles from many different sources including
The New York Times, The New Haven Register, The New Yorker
and
Time
. I also use larger pieces anthologized in the Best American Sports writing and the Best Crime writing. Students write formal essays on these topics and each student is responsible for contributing one feature article for the school newspaper. And next year my unit "Photojournalists for Social Change" will become a month long project in which we explore how photography can be used to effect change in society and in the city of New Haven.
My students love photographs. They bring them in to show their friends, often interrupting a class. They take pictures of the prom, pictures of their friends, their families and, in some cases, of their children. When they take their pictures they just snap away without any regard to composition or lighting. I see them walking around the halls taking pictures of their friends leaning against a locker or just leaning, usually posing, often with gang signs, outside the school building. I don't have anything against that all -- in fact these photos are of their real experience of school. But, I have higher aspirations for them. Although that is normal and somewhat sweet in its innocence, I want to move them from just blindly snapping away. I want them to explore their world more, go outside and take chances, and really see their world, their neighborhood, and better understand their place in it.
First, it makes sense to teach kids about photography -- simple things like learning not to take a picture in front of a window, to hold the camera steady, to make sure they aren't cutting off the heads of the people in the photo, and how to frame a picture. I will teach them what I know, and I have two friends who work as photographers who will come in, and talk to the kids as professionals, and to share their knowledge and experience and some of their work.