This unit was created by Eleni Valenti, a high school English Language Arts educator in Hardee, FL as part of the 2023-2024 Pulitzer Center Teacher Fellowship program. It includes four lessons and is designed for facilitation across six class periods, with work outside of class.
For more units created by Pulitzer Center Teacher Fellows in this cohort, click here.
Objectives:
Students will be able to (SWBAT)...
- Annotate and use metacognitive markers to find the moment of connection in their article.
- Evaluate the author’s choice in establishing and achieving the purpose.
- Create a photojournalist essay with 10 photos that they capture of their local community in order to build connections with those outside of their community
Unit Overview:
One of the reasons that I was inspired to use “a moment of connection” as my theme and topic is because I wanted us to explore that moment of connection. Everyone has a favorite: A book, a movie, a show. Whether we feel that moment in literature, journalism or a film–or any other platform–there is a moment where we feel nearly instantly connected to the life of another–a life of what sometimes is a total stranger. This person could be a stranger to our own culture, or values, or geography–yet we feel this instant connection emerge, and that sort of blooms into something of its own. Perhaps it blooms into inspiration. Impact. Innovation. Whatever becomes of it, I am fascinated by the metacognition involved in attempting to identify why. Why this moment? Where–or what–is that moment of connection that makes us feel something that instantly connects us to engage with material at a higher level?
The essential question that I want my students to explore in great depth, is, How can underreported stories inspire students to reflect on their own lives and histories, cultivate curiosity, and evaluate how their lives connect to the lives of others? In this unit, students do this by following gradual release (I do, We do, You do), so that students have a firm grasp of the material before they have to complete the culminating task, which is a photojournalism essay. Students will practice critical thinking and analysis skills as they evaluate several journalistic texts. They will note trends in what most draws them to a story, they will work with their classmates to compare and contrast moments of connection, and then they will evaluate skills used by authors to facilitate moments of connection. In the end, they will create a photojournalism essay that captures an issue or story they feel very connected to and that they compose using strategies that they hope will connect with a broader audience.
Performance Task(s):
As their summative assessment, students create a photojournalistic experience with 10 photos that visualize moments of connection to their local community. Some prompt questions that students can consider:
- What are some positives in Hardee county?
- Where are moments of connection able to be made? How might others connect to these moments?
- What makes the USA home to you?
Students will use all five senses to help demonstrate their connections to their own communities and to evoke feelings in the reader/viewers. Students will create a caption for each picture that they display.
Option: Students will write an artist statement introducing their project and outlining what they hope their audience will learn/consider/feel/question as they review the images.
Goal: This is about the AUDIENCE connecting with what students are connecting with–the photos they capture and the captions they write. (ex: If basketball is something the student really connects with, how can the student compose a photo that would connect to an audience outside of their community to basketball about why is basketball important to them?)
Their goal is to appeal to the storytelling aspect of journalism and tell a story through the photos they display.
Assessment/Evaluation:
- Formative task: Students will fill out a worksheet while completing the stations activity capturing details and connections for all of the articles they will read and analyze.
- Formative task: Students write 500 words that describe a text-to-self connection and cite evidence from the news article they analyzed.
- Summative task: Photojournalism: Students compose 10 photos that demonstrate their local community with an intent for a broad audience to connect with the story presented in the photo project on a global scale.
- Project description [.pdf][.docx]
- Project rubric.
Four-lesson unit plan for teachers, including pacing, texts and multimedia resources, guiding questions for group discussions, performance task instructions, and grading rubric for the unit. This unit was written to be taught over the course of 4-6 days, but can shortened or extended as needed.
Unit Resources:
Florida’s B.E.S.T (Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking)
- ELA.12.R.2.3: Evaluate an author’s choices in establishing and achieving purpose(s).
College Board AP English Language and Composition:
- RHS-1 Individuals write within a particular situation and make strategic writing choices based on that situation.
- RHS-1.C The purpose of a text is what the writer hopes to accomplish with it. Writers may have more than one purpose in a text.
- RHS-1.G To achieve a purpose, writers make choices in an attempt to relate to an intended audience’s emotions and values.
The following student examples reflect work by students in Wauchula, FL who engaged with this unit plan in spring 2025.
- Students start this unit by reflecting on whether or not they think they can make a connection with someone they don't know. They then select a Pulitzer Center article to analyze. As they read, students note connections they are making to the article to identify what moments they feel most connected to the individuals profiled in the article.
- Student example: Analysis of the article, "Cyprus: Bridging the Divide Through Interreligious Dialogue” by Elene Chkhaidze
- Student example: Analysis of the article "“The Black Box” for Arijit Sen and Derêka K. Bennett for The Dallas Morning News
2. Students then explore several articles on different global issues in stations. They use a stations worksheet [.pdf][.docx] to continue practicing their text-to-self connections to articles.
3. At the conclusion of the unit, students explore photojournalism skills and then compose photo stories that aim to engage others in stories that are important to them. They are aiming to facilitate connections between viewers and their own communities!
- Student example 1: "All Eyes on Us" photo essay
- Student example 2: "Connection with the places we go" photo essay
- Student example 3: "Exploring Hardee, and in turn the world, through food" photo essay
When figuring out what topic to choose for this project I realized that most of my camera roll and memories were filled with food, friends, and family all in one scene. I truly feel that food can bring people together.
Lucia, a Wauchula, FL high student writes in the introduction to her photo project, "Exploring Hardee, and in turn the world, through food."
