Photographs That Changed the World

Mr. Lopez is a secondary school world history teacher. He believes that it is important to use primary source materials in his teaching and frequently shows his students maps, photographs, documents, and other objects that were created when the events he is teaching about took place. To help the students understand the importance of these documents and how to use them, he frequently starts the year with a unit on "Photographs That Changed the World."

Mr. Lopez starts the unit by asking the students to recall the photographs or videos of current events that had a big impact on them. Many recall videos of the World Trade Towers falling in New York City or the tsunami in Indonesia. They discuss what makes these pictures meaningful to them. He then uses Internet resources to show them historic photographs of wars, famines, or events around the world since the beginning of photography. Although many of them are striking, the students do not have the knowledge to appreciate the events they portray or their point of view.

In order to understand the importance of background knowledge in interpreting photographs or writing, Mr. Lopez then has the students use their laptops to conduct research on some famous photographs. Each group of three to four students selects a photograph and uses Internet resources to identify the photograph and determine where it was taken.

They also discuss these questions:

  1. What is the significance of the photograph?
  2. What is the significance of the place where the photograph was taken?
  3. Discuss how this photograph could have influenced an event in history or public opinion?
  4. What does the research say about this photograph? Cite that research.
  5. Does the photograph's influence continue or was it only powerful during the time that it was taken?

The students use their research and laptops to complete an interactive poster in Glogster or a PowerPoint presentation to share their photographs and the events and perspectives they represent. After each group presents, students in the audience use their smartphones and Poll Everywhere to provide feedback about the presentation and then they discuss that feedback as a whole group.

Mr. Lopez then asks each group to use their laptops and to act as reporters and create a blog about a current world event. They describe the event and select photographs or video to illustrate the event, being sure to cite their sources for information and media. For each photograph or video, the students answer the following questions:

Why did you select this photograph?

Does it only represent one point of view?

What is happening outside of the photograph's frame that might alter its significance?

Members of each group use the blog to comment on other groups' reporting, focusing on how well the blog communicates details of the event and whether or not it appears to be biased in favor of one perspective on the event.

Finally, to keep students aware of the powerful role photos and images play in communicating current events, Mr. Lopez asks his students to each use their smartphones to tweet two examples of photos or images the media has used that week in articles about world or local events. At the end of the week he shares and discusses those images with the class as a culminating activity for this unit.

Mr. Lopez knows that students need to learn how to collaborate in order to work together productively in small groups. Therefore, before he begins this lesson, he models and teaches the students collaborative skills, such as giving constructive feedback, using active listening, and summarizing and rephrasing for clarification. The class creates a collaboration rubric, which they use each time they participate in small group work, to assess how well they collaborate. During this "Photographs That Changed the World" lesson, they use this rubric twice, each time they complete a project as part of a small group.

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