Children's Self Expression: Literacy Through Photography

DOCST 224S

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This course explores children's self-expression and education through writing, photography and documentary work. There will be a focus on reading and critical interpretation of images. The course also studies the history, philosophy, and methodology of Literacy Through Photography, and includes an internship in an elementary or middle school classroom. Required participation in service-learning. Consent of instructor required.

More about Literacy Through Photography:

"Artists, activists, and teachers around the world have put cameras into the hands of children, asking and allowing them to share their visions and stories. The resulting images are illuminating and the experience is memorable, if often fleeting.

Literacy Through Photography is a student-centered critical pedagogy that integrates writing and photography into classroom instruction. Developed by the artist and educator Wendy Ewald at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies, LTP has collaborated with the Durham public school system for over 20 years.

Students learn how to navigate differing assumptions about photography. Does it show the “real thing”? Are photographs open to interpretation? And how should photography be folded into a lesson plan? 

The best thing about LTP is how it allows teachers to see how their students see--and how they imagine."

Excerpted from the article "Literacy Through Photography" by Katherine Hyde. 

Visit the Literacy Through Photography blog for more information.

About the Professor:

Katie Hyde

Katie Hyde is the director of Literacy Through Photography (LTP), a program based at the Center for Documentary Studies. Since 1999, she has worked closely with undergraduate students, as well as teachers and students in the Durham Public Schools. Hyde is co-author of Literacy and Justice Through Photography: A Classroom Guide. New and recent LTP collaborations include: Stories from Stagville, a multi-media exploration of the lives of individuals enslaved on Durham’s former Stagville plantation; Song of Myself, a project inspired by Walt Whitman’s literary classic; and the Un-Selfie Project, which takes a critical look at the selfie craze. Hyde has taught LTP workshops hosted by school districts, universities and museums throughout the US and abroad in Bermuda, Rwanda, the UK, Tanzania and South Korea. As director of the LTP Arusha, DukeEngage program, she oversees collaborations among Duke students and educators and students in Arusha, Tanzania. A sociologist by training, Hyde’s undergraduate teaching and advising blend her interests in photography, education and sociology. For three years she served as editor of the “In Pictures” section of sociology journal Contexts. Hyde earned her doctorate in sociology at North Carolina State University.  

Katie also won the 2018 Betsy Alden Outstanding Service-Learning award. Learn more here.

Children's self-expression and education through writing, photography and documentary work. Focus on reading and critical interpretation of images. The history, philosophy, and methodology of Literacy Through Photography. Includes internship in an elementary or middle school classroom. Required participation in service-learning.

Notes

Instructor: Hyde
Cross Listings: EDUC 244S, VMS 207S

Curriculum Codes
  • EI
  • ALP
  • SS
Cross-Listed As
  • EDUC 244S
  • VMS 207S
Typically Offered
Occasionally