Creating a Photo Story

First, the story...

Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen

This is my uncle Frank, Frank Glazer. Frank is 95 years old. Frank still plays concert piano; he still teaches at Bates College. This year's project was to play all 32 of  Beethoven's  Piano Sonatas. He started in September and just finished up last weekend, the second weekend in April. Playing in the background is Frank's 1968 recording of Erik Satie; the New York Times called it the Classical Album of the Year. Frank has played with symphonies all over the world. He premiered several of Aaron Copland's pieces. He studied under Schoenberg and Schnabel. He began playing professionally in a vaudeville show at the age of 13.  Music, Frank says, keeps him alive.

-- Geoffrey Gevalt, YWP Director

I posted this a while ago to show some teachers an idea; what was gratifying was how they "stole" not only the idea but the story, posted it on their sites and gave only this instruction to their students: Go do it. The results were spectacular.

What proves, I think, is when adults take risks, as I did, students feel empowered. Teachers should be writing and blogging and commenting and using multimedia right alongside their sutdents. The other is that often we make instruction too long and deadening. The kids got it. So they did it.

This is is a very simple form of digital storytelling:

• Get a picture of a relative or an elder you know well. Scan it into digital form, if it's not already a digital photo.
• Write a short -- very short -- narrative that will tell us something about the person or some story about the person.
• Find a piece of music or background sound or, even, voice recording of the subject, for background or to supplement the sound track.
• Record your narration as an mp3.
• Add the background or complementary sound to the audio. Export it as an mp3.
• Upload the mp3 audio narration to your blog, or in the case of those having a YWP digital classroom, "create a blog entry"; upload the mp3 in the "podcast" box; upload the photo in the "image" box, paste the text in the "body" and save.
• Voila. Photo Story.
• Encourage the other kids to listen to at least three other classmates' stories and post a comment on each.

The power of the digital piece comes from three directions -- the words, the photo and the sound. The background sound is by no means required, but it helps the students understand the concept of tone.

More details

Sometimes it helps to see the procedure, as deadly as such a thing is to read. The Steps:

1. Choice. Who is the student going to do the piece on? A relative, community member or even a historical figure?
2. Research. The student should interview the elder or research the elder or talk with someone who may have known the elder. Have them get details about the person and an anedcote.
3. Photo. Find a distinctive photo of the person.
4. Write. The student should write a micro story about the person -- 125-200 words; focus on one or two main points. Use detail.
5. Commenting. Have the kids comment on each other's pieces. What intrigued them? What confused them.
6. Revise. Drawing from the comments, edit the piece.
7. Podcast. The student should record himself (herself) reading the piece.
8. Revise. The act of recording probably showed the writer some flaws. Fix and rerecord narration.
9. Background Audio. Have the student incorporate a music track and make sure the volume is low or is modulated to reflect pauses. (Very easy to do on  Audacity)
10. Save podcast. In Audacitiy, export as mp3.
11. Upload audio and image to blog. Polish text.

Bingo!

geoff gevalt

P.S. For more information about my uncle: http://home.bates.edu/views/series/glazer/ or do a Web search.