Month: December 2019

Learning Target:

• I can come up with the final subject for my essay.
• I can identify which parts of my essay are in the beginning, middle and end.
• I can come up I can complete the exit ticket and start work on writing my essay.

Steps:

1. Look at the three ideas you came up with last week.
2. Choose one of them.
3. Figure out which parts go in the beginning, middle and end of your essay.
4. Complete the Exit Ticket in Google Classroom.
5. Post the answers to your exit ticket to your visual journal adobe spark page.
6. Start writing your personal essay.

Tuesday:

Strong goes over how to make your writing more visual, to make it easier to take pictures of your sentences.

https://entropymag.org/variations-on-a-theme-walls/

The above link contains an essay I wrote about a song and about my mentor.

What the essay is about: Growing up, finding my own voice, the way in life one thing ends and other thing begins. How there’s a pattern there.

The beginning of the essay: Starts at the end. At the end of the reading series I use to participate in. At Tom and my father talking.

The middle of the essay: I go back and forth between lyrics of the song, Walls by Tom Petty. I go back to how writing and the search for myself was the same thing.

I bring up both Tom Spanbauer, and Tom Petty, and I draw inspiration from both.

At the end of the essay I talk about the two times Tom visited me. At the end, I talk about moving on without my mentors, and how maybe I am a mentor to other people.

Think about the idea you have for your essay, how to the three parts of your essay break down?

Complete the Exit Ticket in Google Classroom to solidify your thinking.

PHOTO COLLAGE FOR AMANDA MAR’S PHOTO ESSAY: REMEMBERING YOU

For this this week’s assignment you will write the 500 word Personal Essay or Photo Journalism piece that you will take FIVE PHOTOS of for the following week. You want to choose a subject that you feel passionate about, and one that you could easily write five hundred words about, and take five pictures of. If you do not have access to a camera at home, you are not at a loss. On the contrary. Look at all the people here in this class with you. They all have stories, or their families have stories, where they came from, what made them who they are today. Our lives are rich with stories, now we just need to get the stories down on paper so that we can photograph them.

Examples could include first generation Ukrainian family members, where they came from, how they got out, and how they maintain their culture in a foreign land. Maybe someone you know is from Cambodia, maybe Vietnam, was there a way of doing things that is no longer here now. Maybe there is an item you could bring in, an heirloom from a family member, write about it, take pictures of it, where does it come from.

It could be about an up and coming sports star, maybe a friend of yours. An injury that sidelined an athlete for an entire season, and how it felt. The point is, stories are all around us, we just need to listen out for them.

This is not the assignment to rush through and turn it in at the last moment. The quality of this assignment will determine the quality of the photos you take the following week.

The gist: You may do either a Photo Journalism Piece or a Personal Essay. Whichever one you choose will be one that can be accompanied by photographs. It’s the kind of combination of story and photographs that you would see in a newspaper or literary magazine. This week you write the story, you will work over break and the next few weeks you will take the pictures.

A few things to look out for: 
1. As you write this story (THIS MUST BE A TRUE STORY) think about what you would be taking pictures of. What are the moments in my essay that would be most photographable .
2. If it doesn’t exist in reality, make it happen. By bringing in objects, by arranging the light and how far away it is from the subject, we can start creating images instead of taking pictures.
3. Write about something interesting! You do not want to be in the situation where you are working on a story that you have no interest in creating! And always, ask me for help about possible ideas.
Newspapers that have examples of Professional Photojournalism:

New York Times: http://nytimes.com
Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/home-page
The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/
London Times: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/
BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/

Examples of Student Work in recent years on Howl Heritage

Christian Brett – Wake Up Call

Sean Hauff – Skate it Away

Melaine Merryman – Belonging

Aaron Jobin – My Life is Mine

Amanda Mar – Remembering You

Dylan Smith – A View to Something Beautiful

Unity – Jo Agard

Concerts – Karen Rosas

The Color of Culture – Emma Kang

The Damage Left Behind – Shiann Roark

Coach Paul – Anne Chaika

Control – Dani O’Keefe

The Right Pair of Eyes – Sarena Tucker

I am a Dreamer – Jose Cruz Gonzalez
A Wonderful Example of A Photo Essay, which is pretty close to what we are doing:
http://www.dayswithmyfather.com/

AND THIS ONE. MUCH LESS SAD!

http://www.thereluctantfather.com/

MINIMUM of 500 words!!!!!!!!

Part 1: The 500 + WORD WRITTEN assignment is due uploaded to google drive and posted to this post on or before December 19th, 2019.

Part 2: The  FIVE PHOTOS are due posted to Google Classroom. before January 15th, 2020.

HOW TO TURN IT IN:

Part 1: The Essay

1. Upload your file to your Google Drive Account.
2. Turn it into Google Classroom.

Part 2: The Five Photos

1. Highlight the five sentences in your essay that contains the most visual information.
2. Take photos of the five sentences.
3. Upload the Five Photos Google Classroom.

ACTIVITY: RESPOND TO THIS POST WITH TWO DIFFERENT IDEAS FOR WHAT YOU COULD DO FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT. REMEMBER THE IDEAS HAVE TO BE THINGS THAT HAVE REALLY HAPPENED, AND MUST BE NEAR AND DEAR TO YOUR HEART.

RUBRIC FOR THE FIVE PHOTOS

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Essential Question:  How well do the messages we send come across to our audience?

For today, I will show you the way to critique the multi image self portrait images with each other.

Mindset

First thing we have to realize is that we are, at the end of the day, critiquing a person’s identity. To do this right, we need to be able to show what works well and what needs improvement without insulting or offending the person who made this photo.

We are critiquing the process, not the person.

Self Expression = Clear Expression

When it comes to these photos or any photos, the main objective is to get our point across as clearly as possible. The most important question to start with is How Clear does the quote show up in the photos that the person is presenting?

What is there vs. what could be there?

What is there now, vs. what could be there? Is what is present enough to show all that the text says? We are trying to express ourselves, does the quote and the photos provide a clear image or message?

How Could it be Clearer?

What could be done to make the message in the text clearer to the audience?

What gets in the way from us seeing the connection between the text and the person?

The answers to these questions form the critique, the plan of how the photo can be improved. Most improvements are small, a crop here, a rotation there, Making sure the subject is in focus. If a concept is mentioned in the quote, it should be present in the image.

Use the Google Form in Google Classroom to get together with your table mates and critique your photos!

When finished, copy your answers and paste them to your Visual Journal. Include the photo you just critiqued and the person (not yourself) you made the photo.