Photographs offer teachers a way to collect and explore student work that might other wise go unnoticed or minimally examined. A teacher might use photographs to analyze students' strategies and work to promote future instructional practices that result in higher student achievement. As a tool, photographs document student understanding and…

One of the most effective methods for teaching social studies events, concepts, and issues incorporates the fine arts into lesson plans. The fine arts, such as photography, architecture, paintings, tapestries, and sculptures reflect the core cultural values, political ideals, and religious beliefs of a civilization and offer excellent…

Exploring controversial and difficult events and issues with young children can be challenging. The Civil Rights Movement is an abstract, perhaps remote, issue for young children today. However, it is an important part of our country's history and a theme worthy of study. This article suggests ways to use photographs to explore this mature subject…

History is a process. Just as science is the quest to discover and understand the truth about the world we live in, so history is the quest to discover and understand the truth about our world in the millennia that led up to this moment. These authors asked children who ranged in age from 6 to 12, first grade to sixth, how we know what happened in…

This practical guide will help teachers to use the acclaimed "Literacy Through Photography" method developed by Wendy Ewald to promote critical thinking, self-expression, and respect in the classroom. The authors share their perspectives as an artist, a sociologist, and a teacher to show educators how to integrate four new "Literacy Through…

When children look at works of art they tell stories, share experiences, imagine, and explore. This book provides teachers with the skills, and freedom, to design rich and open-ended art experiences for young children. The author looks at the work of a variety of artists and offers guidance for using these artworks as taking-off points for…

Practice posters, with pictures and captions, are useful for controlled practice of vocabulary and structures in an EFL context. The author has found many advantages of using posters with beginners in a high school setting. Student led review gets students active, increases autonomy and improves confidence. The use of small groups is effective…

The author describes teaching eighth-grade students about the civil rights movement. Teachers used photographs of students in the 1950s as a central theme of their unit about the U.S. civil rights movement. Using these photographs as a learning tool inspired the students to be engaged in history. At the end of the unit, students were able to…

Middle grades students read, write, speak, listen, and research as they interview a partner and write an article, write a personal memoir, take partner photographs, and use the Internet to find pictures and information illustrating their partners interests. Results are shared in the form of a poster and a classroom presentation. During the fifteen…

Photography has been used to record war since the Crimean War in 1855. This lesson plan explores how and why war has been photographed and also gives students an opportunity to see the bias within the recording/reporting of war. The lesson plan: cites educational objectives; gives time required; recommends a grade level; notes curriculum fit; and…

To adequately reflect the complexity of the U.S. West or any region, it is useful to represent the landscape through a variety of media and perspectives. Teachers need to supply the framework necessary to sustain a discourse about various media. These lesson plans are intended to be taught as part of a ninth or tenth grade English course. The…

This guide, which is one in the "Exploration" series of curriculum guides intended to assist junior high and middle school industrial educators in helping their students explore diverse industrial situations and technologies used in industry, deals with exploring photography. The following topics are covered in the individual lessons: introduction…

Technology can facilitate a pedagogy-based on neo-Vygotskian sociocultural theory, and on developmentally appropriate instruction. This article reviews the basic principles of such a pedagogy, and then presents a detailed case study of one day's instruction in a preschool classroom, that is richly infused with a system employing digital…

This curriculum guide for a 1-semester or 1-year course in photography promotes exploratory study of the following areas: (1) color processing; (2) technical applications in black and white; (3) special effects in lighting techniques; and (4) career opportunities in commercial photography. The guide contains a course outline, competencies (task…

This guide is intended for use in teaching a graphic communications systems. The course has been designed to provide students with an opportunity to assess audiences; design, produce, and deliver printed and photographic messages; and analyze the impacts of these messages. The first two sections discuss the guide's development within the framework…