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Hello my stylish friends!
I wanted to share a few photographers that I've used with students. Sometimes the teaching of visual media is a brief teaser to get kids interested or a special unit to analyze persuasive techniques in ads or commercials, but visual media is wonderful to weave into class at any time to help students with critical reading and writing analytically. Students can interact with visual media to practice analytical writing throughout the school year and interspersed with written texts. The main purpose of this post is to share a few photographers that I have used with students, but if you would like to explore how to teach visual media, have a look at a sample Lesson Cycle. These artists are great ways to get kids thinking . . . and writing. NOTE: Few artists produce 100% of work that is appropriate for students. I would not suggest having students search online for an artist's body of work, as they may find the websites blocked or run across some unexpected nakedness or gruesomeness. In my classroom, I usually make a set of colored prints for tables or link specific images for kids to review online, not direct links to websites. Daniel Beltrá
I ran across Daniel Beltrá watching a program about conservation. His photos capture man's impact on the planet. I have used his photos of the BP Oil Spill with students with great results; there is a lot here to use with kids.
Unlike some of the other artists - all of his work is school appropriate. See his Collections HERE. Carrie Mae Weems
Weems infuses storytelling and narrative into her work. I have used the "Kitchen Table Series" with students. I taught it as a complete series as it chronicles years in a woman's life around the same kitchen table. Her later work is far more conceptual that some of her earlier series and she expands into film and audio. Find her Collections HERE.
Dina Goldstein
Goldstein is really intriguing and unique. Her photographs all have social commentary that is designed to get people talking. I have used her "Fallen Princess" photos with students from 7th-12th grade and gotten fascinating analytical writing from students. This series explores Disney Princesses dealing with modern day life. The other collections are certainly intriguing - especially the "Doll House" series, but are not as kid friendly. See her collections HERE.
Hiroji Kubota
Much of Kubota's work lends itself to teaching historical and/or cultural context. He has interesting series that explore things distinctly American, as well as explorations in China, North Korea, and his home, Japan.
To see his collections, click HERE.
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![]() Hi Stylish Readers and Patterns of Power fans! Travis and I have been creating reading applications for a variety of POP Middle and High School Lessons. I wanted to share some of those here so you all have access to them. The resources in this post focus on the study of sentence boundaries and how authors create purposeful fragments to lift up and expand ideas for the reader. Throughout these lessons, students study the why behind author's use of fragments as well as study what constitutes a complete sentence. Each reading application allows students to study the pattern in a more in-depth way and allows for an easy bridge between writing and reading instruction. The applications here are to accompany many of the lessons we are seeing districts starting the year with - what constitutes a complete sentence. We approach this by having students explore complete sentences alongside fragments to better understand what each are and the reasons that authors choose to apply both in great writing. When students discuss sentence vs fragment, they have to dive deep into the why. For anyone unfamiliar with the POP process, it is a process where students learn grammar by studying patterns that author's use for impact. For example, instead of focusing on compound sentences, students focus on the why and how author's connect complete sentences. In the POP classroom, students do not learn a rule, they explore different ways author's use patterns. In lieu of learning FANBOYS and memorizing conjunctions, they explore why author's use different conjunctions for different purposes, then apply the pattern (not rule) to their own reading and writing. If this approach sounds of interest, feel free to visit the About page or CLICK here to access free resources for Middle School on the Stenhouse website. High School resources are not officially linked on the Stenhouse page yet, so here they are in draft form - Standards Alignment and Lesson Sequences/Implementation Guide. Reading Applications Options for Complete Sentences and Purposeful Fragments:
Happy teaching! Keep an eye out for more blog posts with reading applications that align to different lessons. ![]() Hello my Stylish Friends! Welcome to my blog. I will post lessons and ideas here to share. These are all my creations, so feel free to take what you need. Also feel free to reach out to me with questions/suggestions or post in the comments. I encounter teachers that either want to incorporate more creative writing into secondary English classes or have a required creative writing piece within curriculum. In either scenario, it can become a disjointed, lengthy process with mixed reactions from students. I also hear things like, my Advanced kids can do it, but my On Level kids are too far behind. This concept of time and having to make up for a lot of lost ground is very real. For teachers who have students with skill gaps, the pressure to get test scores up and to just "fix it" can be a lot and make this type of requirement or desire one of angst, not joy. So, how do we maneuver this landscape? We want students to be allowed creativity and to foster that in class. We have a test bearing down on us. We have so little time to fit it in. How do you walk the line between tested skills and fostering a joy of writing?
Here is what we came up with. First, students read various short fiction (including a graphic short story and a poem with narrative elements) to review story elements and dive into theme, including theme statements. They also played with looking at how changing some story elements impact the theme, such as shifting the conflict, setting, gender of the character, etc. Instead of approaching it as using story elements to entertain and show you understand elements, we approached it from the angle that there are a variety of ways that author's make abstract ideas concrete to share them with others. After studying how some author's do this, they pick an abstract concept and make it concrete. Prior Understandings Needed for Assignment: Definition of Abstract and Concrete
A theme statement is NOT:
A theme statement IS: "Love and justice cannot survive in a world filled with hatred and violence" OR "Power coupled with hatred does not allow love to thrive."
Review and Preparation for the assignment: Have students brainstorm and consider (in small groups or pairs, then as a whole group) the following -
Create a class anchor chart or reference for students to use based on this conversation. Students then complete a chart exploring how one of the short pieces read as a class illustrates this. Have students refer back to a story covered in class, to complete - in our case, we read "The Most Dangerous Game." LINK to EXAMPLE/EXEMPLAR in GoogleDocs Main Assignment with an Example: The task is for students to take an abstract idea and make it concrete through their writing. They may do this in a variety of ways as the class has studied traditional and nontraditional short stories, graphic short stories, poetry with narrative elements, and creative nonfiction. Students also analyze and review an exemplar of the assignment and may use it as inspiration as well.
It begins with a series of quick writes and narrowing down of abstract concepts. Students choose 2 words from this list - the class can brainstorm additions to this last as well so students have more options - and do a 3 minute quick write with each of them. They share their writing with a partner or small group to get feedback and make decisions around which word they will work with. Directions for the quick write
Feedback can look many different ways and speaking stems should be provided. Here are a few that work well. "One thing I found interesting in your writing was ..." "I can relate to your writing, because ..." "One thing I liked was ..." "I would like to know more about ..." After they find a word to focus on, the class goes into a series of mini-lessons, writing time, and conferring to complete their writing. There are a series of minilessons to support the writing and are used to transition the students into workshop. These can be easily taught by having students notice the impact of these patterns in professional writing and then apply. The process will nicely pair with many of the Patterns of Power lessons and/or the model sentences provided in the books. However, you do not need the books for the process to work. Mini-lesson suggestions
For the final produce, students are also asked to write a reflection - What is the central theme of your work? What choices did you make as a writer to ensure this abstract concept became concrete for the reader? Rubric and Grading: This would be your call. Below are a few suggestions for a rubric or learning progression to support.
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