An IU East partnership leads to creative thinking
View second graders' work during a photography exhibit this month
After working together for a year on photography and writing skills, Honors Program students at Indiana University East and second graders at Crestdale Elementary School displayed their work in a gallery exhibit reflecting their joint project, "Literacy through Photography."
The exhibit will be on display until June 29 in the Meijer Artway, located in Whitewater Hall on the IU East campus.
The project was coordinated by IU East assistant professor of English Jean Harper and Crestdale Elementary teacher Natalie Hatton. Through the project, students were motivated to express themselves in writing and speaking, to look at the world more closely, to learn more about each other, and to foster creativity, curiosity and a lifelong love of learning.
A second grade student writes about a picture of his dog.
"This has been such a rewarding experience for my students," Harper said. "They went to Crestdale school once a week to work with the second graders on writing and photography, and were thrilled to see the creative work these kids did."
The partnership began after Hatton invited Harper to the elementary school in 2006 to read to the class passages from Harper's book. After visiting the class, Harper said she started getting ideas for projects with the students -- among those was the concept for the literacy in photography project.
Hatton and Harper attended a Literacy through Photography workshop presented by photographer and teacher Wendy Ewald at Duke University. The literacy project is based on Ewald's decades of time creating the LTP project. Her work is detailed in her book I Wanna Take Me a Picture.
In August 2006, Harper helped launch the program at Crestdale Elementary School.
"We want to do it again," Harper said. "The second graders really took to it. The visual aspect of it was something they could connect with because kids seem to be visually literate now -- they connected with the photography.
"It was amazing what the project did with their writing skills, too," Harper said. "They were able to take photos of things and talk about them. That enabled them to write about what they saw and helped their writing take off."
After the success the program achieved in the last academic year, Harper said she's talked with Hatton about continuing the project and making it a part of the second grade curriculum. Last year 25 students participated, and this fall 50 students will be part of the program.
"Photography is a great, natural way to motivate people to write," Hatton said. "The college students brought another level of excitement and motivation to the kids. The children saw them as experts there to help them learn, and they were good role models."
Harper agreed.
"My students really rose to the challenge of this project. It meant a lot to them to be able to get involved," she said. "I think the best moment for me was when several of my students said, 'We think everyone should know the amazing things that IU East is doing in the community.'"
IU East honors students enrolled in Harper's writing courses in the fall and spring semesters helped to teach the second graders photography and writing. The college students provided instruction on basic photography and helped with writing assignments.
A second grade student from Crestdale Elementary looks at her self-portraits.
"My honors students went into the classroom thinking this would be a cute kid exercise," said Harper. "What they realized was that they were seeing echoes of the second-grade writing process that were similar to what they were doing at the college level. My students had difficulty with starting an essay, and the second graders had the same thing. The IU East students would come back and talk about what they saw, and they realized that the second graders were teaching them skills they could use in their writing."
As another example, Harper said that if the second grade students experienced writer's block, they would examine their photo, and turn it upside down to discover what wasn't apparent when viewing the photo upright.
"It inspired my students to be looser and more creative with their writing," Harper said.
Tyler Groff, an IU East student who will start his sophomore year in the fall, said the project was a beneficial experience. He enjoyed getting the second-grade students involved in something that taught them a number of skills simultaneously and liked watching them progress throughout the semester.
But Groff said he learned from the second-grade students, too.
"I learned how creative and reflective children can be," Groff said. "We get so preoccupied with standardized testing and 'getting back to basics,' that we overlook the real potential in kids. The students, even though they were just in second grade, were able to analyze the pictures on many different levels and write about them in interesting ways. Some of their responses even made me view the photographs in a new light."
Groff said the project also enabled him to view the Richmond community in a new way. He realized how diverse the city is and said that people often get accustomed to their daily routine and forget how much the city has to offer.
The second graders completed two photography assignments focusing on self-portraits and their community during the fall and spring. In addition to the writing assignments accompanying the photography, students wrote invitations to the May exhibit opening, letters of request and thank-you notes to the PTO, and poetry.
