Everyday Projects Curriculum Lesson 9

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Everyday Projects Education Curriculum

Produced by Everyday Projects in partnership with PhotoWings

We’re excited to bring you a new curriculum created in partnership with The Everyday Projects!

The curriculum utilizes photography to encourage middle and high school students to learn about stereotypes, representation, journalism, and truth in storytelling.

Over the course of ten classroom sessions, students will gain a broader understanding of life around the world, and can then apply those lessons to their own lives and help control of the narrative of their own homes and communities. In the process, they will become more aware and discerning news consumers and global citizens while learning practical photography and journalism skills.

In doing this we help create new generations of storytellers and audiences that challenge stereotypes that distort our understanding of the world and recognize the need for multiple perspectives in portraying the cultures that define us.

Explore Lessons

Lesson 1: Defining Community, Stereotypes, and Representation
Lesson 2: Learning to Make Photographs and How to Approach People
Lesson 3: Understanding Photojournalism and Becoming a Photojournalist
Lesson 4: Writing and understanding captions
Lesson 5: Understanding different perspectives in journalism
Lesson 6: Learning from each other by giving and receiving constructive criticism
Lesson 6A: Investigating images, context, and public comments in a book format
Lesson 7: Final personal project selections and group sharing
Lesson 8: Designing the class exhibition and polishing the project statement
Lesson 9: Reflection and class discussion

Explore the Everyday Projects Partnership

Everyday Projects Education: The Essentials
The Everyday Projects Video Lessons
CatchLight + The Everyday Projects
Outreach Spotlight: The Everyday Projects

 

Common Core Standards

  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.2 Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.10 Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.6 Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and communicative tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate.

Teacher Preparation

Preparation:

In advance of the lesson, gather the lists that students created regarding their initial perceptions of Africa and their observations of images from the Everyday Africa feed. Also gather the students’ lists about their perceptions of their own community and external perceptions of their community. Teachers and students will also neeed access to the students’ photos in case any specific images are discussed during reflection.

Online Media:

Lesson 9: Reflection and class discussion

Length: 45 min
Learning Objectives Students will engage in personal and class-wide reflection to better understand their role within the project and the project’s outcomes. They will evaluate their challenges and successes as they consider how the project is applicable to their lives, including being able to:

  • Reflect on what they learned and their participation in the project

  • Review the purpose of the project, the process, and the work accomplished

  • Evaluate the quality of involvement and identify strategies for improvement

Class reflection

Photo of Accra, Ghana by Nana Kofi Acquah; Grand-Bassam, Ivory Coast by Peter DiCampo; and Lagos, Nigeria by Yagazie Emezi

You should feel free to lead your students through a reflection of The Everyday Projects unit however you feel will work best.

We have prepared the list of questions below to guide a class reflection discussion. The same set of questions is in this Lesson 9 Reflection Document. Depending on your class size, teaching style, and student learning needs, you could reflect together in one large classroom discussion, or in small groups, or only as a written reflection. We recommend that you have some form of group discussion, and then leave time for students to fill out the reflection document in the last 15 minutes of class.

However you choose to engage with your students, here are some questions that may be helpful starting points as they reflect on their time as student photojournalists.

 

❖ Teacher Note

❖ In case it is useful to facilitate discussion, you should have on hand the lists students created regarding their initial perceptions of Africa, their initial observations of images from the Everyday Africa feed, students’ lists about their perception of their community and the lists regarding external perceptions of their community, and the students’ exhibition photographs and wider selection of photos in case they want to reference a specific image in the course of the discussion.

Part 1: Changing Perceptions

  • What was your initial perception of Africa, and how did it change over time?

  • What did you list as your own perceptions of your community? What were your initial thoughts on how other people perceive your community? 

  • Can you indicate specific photographs made by you or your classmates that you feel do a good job of telling a true story about your community?

  • Did the photography that you or your classmates produced address misperceptions of your community? How? Are there any specific photos that you feel accomplished this?

  • Did you learn anything surprising about your own community through the processes of photographing or of viewing your classmates’ work?

  • How did people from your community respond to the exhibition of your class’s work? Do you think they felt that the photography accurately represented your town, city, neighborhood, or school?

  • Has your definition of stereotype changed as a result of this project? How?

  • Has the way you think about journalism changed? How? What learning caused these changes? 

  • If your class started an Instagram feed – how do you feel having contributed photographs to this Everyday account on Instagram? What reaction does your audience have to these photos on the class Instagram account?

Part 2: Personal Reflection

  • What are at least two important things you learned in this project?

  • What did you enjoy most about the project?

  • If you did this project again what would you have spent more time on or done differently?

  • What part of the project do you consider to be your best work / are you most proud of?

  • What part of the project did you struggle with the most?

  • What is something you learned that you can use in the future (in school work or in your everyday life)?

  • How could this project be changed next time to make it better?

IF YOU HAVE TIME – 5 MINUTES

For some additional inspiration at the end of the unit – particularly for any students who have developed a strong interest in photography and journalism – you can show your class this video from our partners PhotoWings on “The Power of Photography”.

PhotoWings sat down with six of the instructors at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop and asked them a simple question: What is it about photography that you find so powerful and important? They share heartfelt thoughts about their experiences and the work they have dedicated their lives to.

 
 

 

THE EVERYDAY PROJECTS COMMUNITY

We hope that you and your students have enjoyed this unit!

We would love to hear from you regarding your experience with this curriculum. Was it useful? Are there ways that we can improve? Please let us know by filling out this short survey. Thank you!

At The Everyday Projects, we’re always thrilled to learn that more teachers and students are joining this global community of storytellers. Feel free to write to us with any questions about this curriculum, or even just to let us know that you and your students are out there working on this. We’d also love to feature student work on @everydayeverywhere, the central Instagram account for The Everyday Projects. You can reach us at info@everydayprojects.org.

This curriculum is produced by Everyday Projects, and presented in partnership with PhotoWings.