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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)...

  1. Annotate and use metacognitive markers to find the moment of connection in their article. 
  2. Evaluate the author’s choice in establishing and achieving the purpose.
  3. 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:

  1. 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.
    • Stations worksheet with four articles already outlined, and two open articles for the educator to choose. [.pdf][.docx]
  1. Formative task: Students write 500 words that describe a text-to-self connection and cite evidence from the news article they analyzed. 
  2. 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. 

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