Anticipatory Set:
Students will look up the word daguerreotype on the internet and write their own definitions in their response logs.
Guided Practice:
Students will trace the history of these occupations from the nineteenth Century to present by doing research on the internet. They will use a window organizer (Appendix 1) to record their observations. This organizer will consist of four quadrants -- facts, ideas, feelings, and questions.
Independent Practice:
They will use a Photo Analysis Worksheet (Appendix 3) to record their subjective observations (personal associations, opinions), objective observations (form, structure, arrangement of elements), and interpretations.
Assessment:
In their response logs, first, they will point out similarities and differences of these occupations as seen in the 19th and 21st centuries. Second, they will compare and contrast both photographs choosing either to write about both pictures at the same time or write about Picture A in one paragraph and about Picture B in another paragraph. Use of words and phrases such as
similar to , both, also, too, as well
, emphasize similarities whereas differences are emphasized by words and phrases such as
however, but, in contrast, differs from, while, and unlike.
Is the woman with the sewing machine an unidentified subject? Is it an industrial model of a sewing machine? (Probably that of Grover and Baker). Is it a promotion for manufacturing sewing machines? Is it an illustration of the clothing industry at the time? Is it a portrait of a proud seamstress displaying the tools of her trade? Is the telegrapher proud of his technology? What about his pose? Does he radiate confidence? Do you know what a telegram is? Have you heard about the Morse Code? Was telegraphy a wonder of the 19th Century, along with photography, railroad, and the steamship?
The third lesson will introduce the famous photograph of Gordon Parks'
American Gothic
(the portrait of a woman with a mop and the American Flag) (Figure C). Without any background information, students will brainstorm everything that they observe using a window organizer. They will analyze the subject, pictorial elements, line, space, color and mood. From the brainstorming will evolve a thesis statement which will be supported with details and recorded in the response log. We will wrap- up the lesson discussing the true identity of the person in the photograph. The woman with a mop was Ella Watson, a government charwoman. Gordon Parks documented the socially rich and economically poor in the nation's capital. His weapon, the camera, focused on racial and economic injustices. Is Ella Watson a representation of those low-skilled workers who were mostly African Americans? Gordon had also taken pictures of her grandchildren, her leaving for work at 4.30 p.m. and her cleaning the office at night. Students may point out that it looks like a man because of the facial features and the protruding Adam's apple. They may also observe minute details such as the shadow on the left eye lens. What about Walker Evans' photograph
Kitchen Corner, Hale County, Alabama, 1936
(Image R)? The broom is a simple design element in both images. A connection can be made to Joseph Rosenthal's
FlagRaising on Iwo Jima, 1945
(Image S)
where the flag is a symbol of patriotism,
heroism, teamwork, victory, and risk-taking.
Though the flag actually has 48 stars, only 36 appear in the picture. It is a good opportunity to discuss the flag as the most widely used symbol of the United States with the thirteen equal, horizontal stripes of red alternating with white, representing the thirteen original colonies. This photograph can be compared with the painting Grant Wood's
American Gothic
(picture of a farmer and his unmarried daughter) (Image D). Grant Wood had his dentist and sister pose before a white house in Iowa built in Gothic Revival style. It is a frontal arrangement. Grant Wood celebrated traditions of the Midwest and depicted rural American subjects; Park's work is an ironic variation on Wood's painting.
The fourth lesson will be about Carlton Watkins'
Grizzly Giant, Mariposa Grove,
1861(Image E). In the summer of 1861, Watkins traveled to remote Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove of Big Trees, 200 miles East of San Francisco to photograph their fabled wonders. This photograph provides evidence of this tree's existence. It is 33 feet tall. Students will use a window organizer to record facts, ideas, feelings, and questions. Man's size is contrasted with that of the giant Sequoia. Is man seeking shelter under the tree? We would talk about the oneness of man with nature and read Oscar Wilde's poem "We are made one with what we touch and see." Watkins first photographed the base of the grizzly giant with Galen Clark, Yosemite's caretaker, in 1861. At that time, the fallen branches were as large as trees and surrounded the base of the giant sequoia. Galen Clark was also Watkins' guide. We will compare this photograph of Watkins to another one titled
Mirror Lake,
Yosemite, 1866 (Image F). It is a view of a mountain which was later named as Mt.Watkins by the members of California State Geological Survey, recognizing his work. It illustrates the enormity of the landscape. It is virgin land, nature undefiled by man. The pristine clarity of the water is striking. Every minute detail of nature is reflected on the water. Nature is awesome and inviting. The water is tranquil and the cliffs and trees, majestic. Students will write an expository essay in their response logs on the relationship of man to nature. In the introduction, they will record three reasons why man is linked with nature. In the body of the essay, consisting of the second, third, and fourth paragraphs, they will support their reasons with details. The fifth paragraph will be the conclusion.
The fifth lesson's duration will extend to two days (detailed lesson plan two). We will study Timothy O'Sullivan's
A
Harvest of Death, Gettysburg,
1863 (Image G) and John Reekie's
A Burial Party, Cold Harbor, Virginia,
April 1865 (Image H).
Detailed Lesson Plan 2
Anticipatory Set:
Students will complete a window organizer for each photograph.
Guided Practice:
Photographers used the new technology of photography to display the brutality of war. We will discuss victim photography. Does this display true brevity of life? In
A Burial Party
, the group of black men are doing the menial work while a white man stands at upper left and acts as overseer. The labor is physical. The man seated next to the stretcher, looks at the camera, with no emotion. The people are the burial party and other human remains; the landscape is the burial ground; and the artifacts are human skulls. The pictures cover destruction and death and the damage of war. It is a sad scene indeed of those killed in the battle of Cold Harbor. Why did the residents of that part of Virginia allow the remains of fallen Union soldiers to decay unnoticed? May be the task was too gigantic since nearly sixty thousand Union soldiers were killed or wounded in this area. The soldiers had to go away perhaps before they completed the task of burying the dead. Civilians before were used to paintings of war, where a battle always was heroic and not dreadful. Unlike paintings, people were able to view photographs at the same time, from different places as they were published in Alexander Gardner's
Photographic Sketch Book of the War
. The American Civil War (1861-65) was the third war in history to be caught on camera- the others being Mexican war and Crimean war. What about Ralph Crane's
Phoenix, Arizona war worker pens her Navy boyfriend, 1943
? (Image T)
The skull serves as a souvenir of war.
A Harvest of Death
shows dead Union soldiers. It is detailed with repetitive images and creates a dramatic effect. Only one face is visible. It can be seen with an open, distorted mouth and bloated lips, dark mustache and beard. The expression on the face reflects the dreadful fight and the barbaric way of dying. The hand is also bloated. This figure is the focal point. The foreground and background are blurred. The receding forms create depth and movement. The bodies are lying all over the hill, killed during the fight before. The soldiers were probably running down the hill when confederate bullets shot them down. None of them is wearing shoes or boots which were stolen by retreating Confederates who had a desperate need for footwear. After the fight, the surviving and healthy soldiers looked for their dead comrades. Two of them can be seen only as silhouettes in the background of the pictures. They are part of the scenery. Can this photograph be compared to George Strock's
Three Americans, 1943
(Image U
)
? The face of the shipwrecked bodies is not visible as they lie buried in the sand. There is no bloodshed, no enemy, no violence.
Independent Practice:
Students will discuss the causes and effects of war in general, using circle organizers. They will use the strategy of
visualization analysis
to study these photographs. The photographs will be analyzed by the process of visualization. The students will work on 3 levels. Levels 1 and 2 will be pre-writing. At first students will list all the objects they see in the photographs. Then they will divide the photographs individually into 4 quadrants and form a replica of the quadrants on a sheet of paper. They will record repeated details. For example if an image is repeated in quadrants 2 and 3, they will record it on their papers. Partners will come up and share with the whole class, the details they observed. This activity will bring out all the images in the photograph. Partners will then discuss the theme or purpose of the photograph. At level 3, the teacher will record all the interpretations on chart paper.
Assessment:
Students will then select one interpretation from the recorded summary. They will write a detailed response in their response logs with evidence from the visual piece. Is there any connection to the war in Iraq? We will look at photographs published in magazines. How was the Civil War different from modern warfare? They will respond to this question in a paragraph. They will edit and revise their work in groups and display it in the classroom. To wrap up this lesson, we will view the Time and Life Video,
The Century of Warfare
(1918 and the Aftermath). We will also design anti-war posters with captions like--
don't shed blood, value human life, do not kill, respect your life and that of others.
The sixth lesson will revolve around Alexander Gardener'
Lewis Powell (Payne)
1865 (Image I). Students may not be able to identify the person. However, they will record all details in a window organizer. We will discuss the person in general before identifying him as Powell who had a reputation for his violent temper. He was a member of the Confederate Army that fought at Gettysburg. He was wounded and taken as prisoner but he escaped from prison. He had nearly killed an African American maid by throwing her on the ground and stamping on her body and striking her on the forehead. John Wilkes Booth had recruited him to take part in his plot to kidnap Abraham Lincoln in Washington and Powell agreed to murder William Seward, the Secretary of State. Powell attacked Seward but was arrested after three days. During his trial Powell was identified by the people in Seward's house and was found guilty. He was hanged at Washington Penitentiary on 7th July, 1865. He was very tall, with an athletic, gladiatorial frame and robust. He had dark gray eyes, low forehead, massive jaws, compressed full lips, small nose with large nostrils, and a remorseless expression. Powell walked to his death stoically. He died hard. Alexander Gardener's picture was actually taken in Navy Yard in Washington. Lewis is in his cell. There are two iron sheet walls. He is a conspirator in a sweater, manacled, a participant in the Lincoln Conspiracy. This would lead us to discuss current events such as the execution of Michael Ross. Is lethal injection a better method than the gallows?
The seventh lesson will extend to two days. It will be about immigration, focusing on Lewis Hine's
Looking for Lost Baggage
, 1905 (Image J).
Detailed Lesson Plan 3
Anticipatory Set:
Before looking at the photograph, students will view the three parts of the History Channel video
Ellis Island
.
Guided Practice:
Students will use the window organizer to record all details of the photograph. It might be easy for them to identify this picture as it is shown in this video and is also found in their social Studies text.(
Our United States, Volume II
, NJ 1997 by Silver Burdett Ginn.)
Independent Practice:
Students will then write a reflective piece using different points of view. Students will discover their own histories and recognize the universal link of belonging. What were the reasons for immigration? Among them were liberty, opportunity, higher wages, freedom, land, hope, golden life, independence, religious and political freedom. Did the immigrants truly come to the Promised Land? Was the
American Dream
real? Was immigration a dehumanizing experience? What was their economic status? What is the background of the picture? Have they landed in Ellis Island? Where is the father? Has he reached another section of Ellis Island or doesn't he exist? Maybe he is back home, holding onto something tangible. Does the boy have to shoulder the family responsibilities? Is the sack that the boy carries a symbol of this? Why are they not smiling? Are they confused or afraid? Do they have any hope of assimilating into a new culture? Are they willing to reinvent their identity since they made a conscious decision to break with their origin and leave their country of birth?
Assessment:
We will discuss the plight of the traveling children and the hardships they endured on
landing. Students will identify themselves with an immigrant child in the photograph and write a journal entry detailing their experience in the ship and in Ellis Island, the port of
arrival. How did they feel in a strange land where everything was different?
As a comparison, I will introduce a photograph of the same period--Alfred Stieglitz's
The Steerage
, 1907 (Image K). Students might draw a comparison to the Titanic.
They will also picture the people as traveling on this ocean liner toward America. They
are returning to Europe. Probably they did not meet the requirement of the immigration officers who checked to see if they were physically fit, mentally able, morally sound, and literate. Some of them had to accompany sick kids who were below the age of eleven. It is interesting that there are so many shapes and images. One is particularly drawn to the white hat worn by a man on the top level of the steerage. Why is he different from the others? Who knows what the tree-trunk like structure is? What about the expression of the people? Is it one of despair and hopelessness? Are all their dreams broken?
The eighth lesson will be Timothy O'Sullivan's
Sand Dunes
(Image L). Students will use a window organizer to analyze the photograph. The desert seems inhospitable. The impermanence of footprints and wagon tracts signify that wagons pass through the desert without altering the landscape for the benefit of humanity. Field photographers such as O'Sullivan used wagons on their treks for their portable equipment. Students will analyze how the juxtaposition of light with darkness creates clarity. We will compare it to Edward Weston's
Dunes, Death Valley
, 1938(Image M). Weston spent a year traveling through Death Valley in California. The dunes are artistic shapes of nature. They look three dimensional. They are coastal, rolling sand dunes. One can feel the soft, undulating rhythm of sand. The mundane reality lies beautiful and valuable. The landscape is maternal and sensuous. It is a rich, powerful image of the American West. Weston was fascinated with the form of the visual world. Students will learn that landscape photography can be interpreted in three ways -- the view (the scene is a spectacle of wonder), the aesthetic landscape (photographer's artistic vision animates the image) and the topographic photograph (image is more descriptive and is part of a larger political or scientific discourse). Sullivan falls into the third category as a topography photographer. It seems that the humans are intruding upon the Western landscape. The frontier would eventually become safe for the tourist.
The ninth lesson will be about the period of Depression (
Migrant Mother
,
Nipomo,
California
, 1936 by Dorothea Lange (Image N). Lange found the woman and her children in a squatter camp near pea fields. This mother was a destitute pea picker in California with seven children. She worked ten hours a day and earned 35 cents an hour. When the crops froze, she was forced to sell her car tires to feed her children. She is anxious and worried. Why are the two children turned away from the camera? Maybe the photographer did not want to distract us from the central figure. What about her hand delicately touching her chin? Does it convey uncertainty? Does she represent universal motherhood? Attention is drawn to the primary person. The energy is centripetal and condensed inward. The baby on the lap cannot be noticed till the photograph is scrutinized. What were the causes of migration? How is migration different from immigration? Why did blacks move North from South? Why did people travel West? What was the Homestead Act? Dorothea Lange documents the Depression era. Most of her pictures are frontal. Even those of the sharecroppers. There is a precise expression on the subject's face. Lange appreciated the ordinary and had an insightful compassionate concern for people. During the Depression era, farm families tried to escape from the Dust Bowl. Lange recorded social and cultural events and the forgotten men, women, and children. Are her cultural and social perspectives relevant today? Students will read John Steinbeck's
The Grapes of Wrath
to build background (homework assignment given at the beginning of the unit). We will read Katelan Jake's
Survival in the Storm: The Dust Bowl Diary of Grace Edwards.
The photograph selected for the tenth lesson is Ansel Adams'
Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico
, 1941 (Image O). It is the most popular single image by this photographer. Adams captures a fleeting moment. It was taken at the end of a day when he was frustrated because he could not capture images that he saw in his mind's eye. While driving to Santa Fe along Highway 84 near Espanola, he saw a particularly striking moonrise just as the sun was setting. He wanted to capture the scene before the clouds became dark and the white crosses dimmed. There are three layers which stimulate the eye -- black sky, white clouds, gray landscape. He translates light into precise tonal relationships. He has photographed the moon on few occasions. In a century dominated by machines, he taps into the civilizing and ennobling influence of nature.
The eleventh lesson will analyze Edward Burtynsky's
Oxford tire Pile
#5,
Westley, California, 1999
(Image P).Students will record details in a window organizer. The photographer is also a reporter here, picturing the Canyon in the California Coastal range with millions of tires. The initial reaction to this photograph would be that nature is being polluted and transformed by industrial wastes such as the tires. Another point of view would be to see human achievement. People are striving toward economic gain. The sun is shining on top of the mountain. The scrubby hillside is covered with tires. Edward depicted global industrial landscapes. His imagery combines elements of mining, quarrying, shipping, oil production, and recycling. Students may compare the tires to do-nuts or cheerios. Because of the fire hazards, the 40 acre mountain has been cleared of millions of tires and this scene of industrial pillaging no longer exists. Students can compare this photograph to the other photographs of the Oxford tire piles. Students can contrast this to Carleton Watkins' nature photographs that they have studied in the fourth lesson. Is there a connection between this picture and that of the Migrant Mother who sold her car tires to get food for her children? What about Walker Evans'
Garage Outside Southern City (Atlanta, Georgia),1936
(Image Q)?
The twelfth lesson will be a persuasive essay -- Is photography an art or a science? Students will identify the audience and use the appropriate tone to convince their readers. In the introduction, they will give three reasons as to why photography is an art or science. The second, third, and fourth paragraphs will constitute the body of the essay. Each paragraph will re-state the reason and support it with facts, examples, experiences, and details. The final paragraph will be the conclusion. Students will use persuasive words and phrases, statistics, and transition words.
The thirteenth and fourteenth lessons will be the wrap up. Students will respond to questions and prompts.
-
1. What was the most powerful image and the least effective one and why?
-
2. Students will select a photograph from this unit and respond to it by writing a poem.
-
3. They will do a holistic piece of writing labeled "What I saw", drawing evidence from the photographs in this unit. They will incorporate their viewpoints. We will discuss whether their viewpoint was different from that of the photographer.
-
4. How do photographs influence public opinion? They will respond to this in a newspaper article or editorial.
-
5. If students were asked to compile an album with ten images they had photographed, what would they be?
-
6. Students will compare and contrast their captions to those given by photographers for the selected images in this unit. This will be a fun activity. They can discuss in groups their reasons of choice.
-
7. They will write an
I search Paper
on Photography. They will ask an Essential Question and support it with four facts, giving examples from the photographs they studied in this unit.
-
8. They will write a letter to their friend, describing the photographs they studied in this unit.