Need help figuring out photojournalism elective credit

[momee]

DD participated in a year long yearbook co-op class last year and now this year she wants to do this program...

http://www.learnwithworld.com/writewithworld/

to allow her to further explore her interest.

 

If we were to count some of this as a credit, what counts, what to add?

 

This year instead of yearbook she is documenting activities and taking pictures as well as working on scrapbooks for our church youth group. This could become as large or small a job as we would need it to. I'd love to further her interest and capitalize on it for credit :)

 

Thoughts? What are we missing?

[Lori D.]

re: the specific program you linked

From the table of contents, other than the first lesson, it looks like the program is all about how to *write*, not about how to tell a story with photos. Perhaps this program may not be quite what your DD is thinking it is, as it sounds like she is interested in the photography aspect of journalism, not so much the writing aspect.

 

As for how to count this program for credit; I looked at the sample lesson, and it looks like, at a high school level, it would be one day's lesson. The ToC shows a total of 32 lessons. That would come out to about 6-8 weeks of material (a lesson per day, 4-5 days a week); you'd need about 2-3 more weeks of material to make the program worth 0.25 credit... Perhaps some of the other lessons are more meaty and would take more than 1 day to complete? I'm not seeing anywhere on the website that there are more assignment ideas, or how in the world you would stretch each unit (4 lessons, which each look like a 1-day thing to me, which means each unit = 4 days/1 week) into 9 weeks...

 

 

 

re: assignments for a photojournalism credit

In thinking about what goes into a photojournalism course, I would look at some course listing online for high school and college and see what the syllabus includes, both for topics, ideas for assignments, and for amount of work.

 

Here's a great FREE 18-week syllabus from Word Press: Teach_J, for teachers of journalism and media, with lots of links to resources to help you present each of those topics. You could take it slower, and spread this 0.5 credit of material out over 1 year...

 

Here is what a 1-week summer course in photojournalism for high school students covered (it was 40 hours of coursework, which I would count as 0.25 credit):

- Digital Capture - exposure, compression

- Composition and Lighting

- Camera Controls - shutter speed, aperture, depth of field

- Digital Workflow

- Visual Story-telling Ideas & Techniques

- Photojournalism Processes

 

The New York Times Learning Network: Daily Lesson Plan: Photojournalism could give you ideas for doing a wide variety of types of assignments just from the titles of the lesson plans.

 

You may also find some books on what photojournalism is and how photojournalists work to be helpful; example: Associated Press Guide to Photojournalism

 

Finally, I think a very helpful aspect of a course in photojournalism would be some teacher and class interaction -- seeing what other students turn in as photos for the same assignment, and being able to discuss, critique, compare. Any possibility of joining a local public school class just for this topic?

 

 

 

Re: photography

I strongly suggest purchasing/downloading one of the =6&date_filter[min][date]=&date_filter[max][date]="]Creative Live photography workshops to learn about photography. These are live streaming workshops put on every so often by Creative Live -- they are free at the time they are live, and then you can purchase/download past workshops. I *highly* recommend the Fundamentals of Digital Photography by John Greengo. He covers a *ton* of material in the ten 2-hour sessions -- you can see a short clip from each of the 10 sessions at the page I linked above. He is a wonderful, natural teacher -- the info is so clear, specific, and geared right at that beginning-to-advanced-beginning level.

 

I'd also seriously consider a workshop on post-production as well, as photojournalists (and all photographers) now need to know how to do digital post-production to bring out all the best of each photo's potential. The Photoshop for Photographers workshop might be a good place to start -- and you can take this one for FREE, as it is going to be a live class next week, Aug. 22, 23, 24 -- just register for free if you want to be able to participate in the live chat that occurs during the workshop -- or, you can watch online free at any time whatever course is going on at the moment.

 

 

 

BEST of luck as you create a very exciting class for your DD! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited August 16, 2012 by Lori D.