ASSIGNMENT - PHOTO ESSAY

As a team of war correspondents you have been commissioned by Life Magazine to create a photo essay that tracks the journey of a young American boy fighting in the Vietnam war. As a photojournalist you pride yourself on your ability to creatively combine images, sounds and words into compelling stories about the changes that such an experience can bring about.

Choose one of the following main characters from the novel Fallen Angels, to study: Richie Perry, Lobel Johnson, Peewee, Lt. Carroll or Brewster. As you read the novel, record details about the character, including important things that they say or do. Be sure to note observations that your character makes about others in the novel as well as observations that other's make of them. Pay particular attention to your character's response during key events in the novel and what changes he may be going through.

Gather Details from the Novel

Decide with the other members of your group how you will divide up the novel to examine it more carefully for details related to the character that you are focusing on. If you are working in a group of 3 you may wish to divide the novel into thirds so that one person can examine the first third, somebody else the second third and the final group member looking carefully at the last section of the novel. Each person in the group will be required to collect evidence in the form of quotations about the character. What is the character like at the beginning and end of the novel? What major changes have occurred? Find evidence from the novel to support your claims. You may find it helpful to mark the pages of the novel with small post it notes for quick reference.

Record each of the quotations that you find in a word document noting the paragraph number and page number in brackets beside each of them. Review the quotations that you have gathered from the novel and write 4 or 5 generalizations about the character that can be supported by the details you have collected.

Save this word document as Your Surname and submit it to the teacher's drop box in the folder called Novel Research Notes.

Group Meeting

Meet with the other members of your group to share the details from the novel that you have gathered and to develop a profile of the character. Decide what your character was like before his experience in Vietnam and what changes occurred to him throughout the novel. Use the details from the novel that you have gathered to support your conclusions. Organize this information into an outline or concept map and submit it to the teacher. Search for a unifying theme or insight.

Find ten to fifteen images (artwork, portraits of individuals, war scenes, symbols, etc.) that you could use to help communicate important ideas about your character and the changes that he goes through. Save these images in a folder on the student network that everyone in the group will have access to.

Plan Your Photo Essay

Organize the ideas from your group into a photo essay to present to the class. Use Power Point, web pages or some other multimedia format to present your photo essay. Work with your group to develop a storyboard that outlines the information that will be included on each slide or web page of your presentation. Decide how you will combine visual images with details from the novel to communicate important ideas about your character. Use images such as artwork, portraits of individuals, war scenes, symbols, etc. to enhance your presentation and support your depiction of the character. Keep in mind that any text appearing in the presentation should be easy to read and there should be no more than one succinct sentence on a slide. Your story board should provide an outline of what text, images, and sounds will appear on each slide (or web page) of your presentation.

Submit a copy of your storyboard to the teacher.

Create Your Photo Essay Presentation and Write the Accompanying Narrative

Assemble the images and quotations together into a photo essay presentation to illustrate the changes that your character has undergone throughout the course of the novel.

Write a narrative to accompany your photo essay that includes an interesting and compelling introduction to your character. Use the body of your narrative to weave your slides (web pages) together into a story about the changes that your character has undergone and to reveal the complexities of this individual. Finally write a conclusion for your narrative that summarizes or reemphasizes the most significant aspect of the individual that you have presented.

Save a copy of the narrative as Your Surname and submit it to the teacher's drop box.

Rehearse Your Presentation

Meet with your group to determine who will be responsible for each part of the presentation. Everyone should have an equal role and you should rehearse your part until everyone in the group feels confident and your delivery is smooth.

Self Assessment

Use the criteria in the Fallen Angel Assessment Rubric to prepare a word processed self assessment of your project presentation. Save your self assessment as Your Surname and submit it into the teacher's drop box.