Happy Thanksgiving Break

Here's wishing all my followers and friends a wonderful Thanksgiving!!  Back on the blog and back to school next Monday.

Pulitzer Activity

pulitzer.org is the website for viewing all the Pulitzer Prize winners for the year and archives past winners.  Have the beginning students to a quick web quest in which they surf this site examining Pulitzer photo winners.

Require the students to print one photo.  They must write a short response on why that particular photo appealed to them.  Why did they think it won the most prestigious award in photography?   Have the students share their findings during the last 10 minutes of class.

Composition Activity

These two days before Thanksgiving break are essentially worthless at our school.  Many of our students are rewarded with their End of Course Success Days, so very few are left on campus.  For those who are still with me, I choose to do a simple photo composition reinforcement activity.

Ask your librarian for 30 or so odd magazines.  Libraries are always trashing their old mags, and you can use them for photo assignments no matter what the publishing date.

Fill the frame, leading lines, rule of thirds, angle, and story-telling quality are all photo terms that are key to the basic understanding of composition.  Have the students search out examples of these five terms in the old magazines.  Tear them out to form a rudimentary portfolio.  For each photo, they must write a short defense for why they selected this photo.

This gives each student a fun, yet beneficial activity to complete on a not so exciting day in the classroom.