Bright Ideas Lesson Plans
Impact of a Photograph
Students in my International Baccalaureate class – Theory of Knowledge, study Ways of Knowing: perception, reason, emotion and language; Problems of Knowledge, and Areas of Knowledge – with an emphasis on ethics. Using an article published in your Sunday, August 20, 2006 Daytona Beach News Journal issue, published in the World section, called Impact of a Photograph – How an image can change lives sent my students on the most incredible journey into ethics and perception. This piece/photo journalism provided my students with the most thought provoking issues: Kevin Carter’s suicide, and other iconic photographs that changed our perceptions: Viet Cong Execution: 1988; Abu Ghraib Abuse: 2003; Napalm Attack: 1972. The debates, journal entries, poetry and personal reflections on the impact of these photos as well as student generated thoughts on ethics were incredible. The use of the newspaper as the impetus for such high level thinking and the evaluation of such sensitive topics was an odyssey through history, the arts and ethics of society…all made possible by this incredible news piece.
Diane Tomko
Gifted/IB
Flagler Palm Coast High
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