Using Photography to Inspire Writing 7

By Hank Kellner

“Sometimes dreams alter the course of an entire life.”
Judith Duerk, American psychotherapist-author

If you’re like me, you probably have a love-hate relationship with your computer. On the one hand, it can sometimes drive you crazy. On the other hand, it allows you to do things you couldn’t easily do otherwise. For example, in less than a second you can convert a positive image to a negative one. And after you’ve done that, you’ll be able to use your negative image in many different ways to help students overcome their reluctance to write.

For example, you could combine your image(s) with a poem to stimulate group discussion that will lead to written assignments. You could ask your students to write about one or more of the dreams they may have had. You could encourage them to speculate as to the meaning of dreams. Or you could simply show them a “dream” photo linked to an appropriate poem and allow them to write whatever comes to mind.

A Dream

A dream slipped into my room
The other night while I slept.

“Who are you, dream?”
I asked softly.

“I am you,” she said.
“I am who you are,
And who you were,
And who you want to be.”

“Then stay with me,”
I whispered.
“For if it’s true
That you are me,
Then surely I am you.”

— Jerry Kato

How to Connect Seeing with Writing

Valerie Reimers is a Professor of English in the Department of Language and Literature at Southern Oklahoma State University. Reimers has developed an assignment that asks her students to discover convergences between visual images and verbal texts as they create both. First, she directs them to create photographs and, without looking at them, immediately write journal entries describing what they saw and hoped to capture in the photos. “In this way,” she writes, “the students connect seeing with writing.”

A few days later, Reimers directs the students to view printed versions of their photos, describe in writing what they see in their images, and compare/contrast their descriptions with the journal entries they had written earlier.

For the third and final part of the assignment, Reimers requires the students to submit a portfolio consisting of three sets of photos and written entries for evaluation and to share with their classmates. “Doing well on this assignment,” she concludes, “doesn’t depend on photographic skills. Rather, it depends on the careful choosing of subjects and the effort put into writing about them.”

To receive a more complete description of this assignment, contact Dr. Reimers at valerie.reimers@swosu.edu.

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About the Author | More by Hank Kellner
Write What You See: 99 Photos To Inspire Writing by Hank Kellner available from Amazon. Original Edition. Cottonwood Press. I-800-864-4297. Cottonwood Press is distributed by Independent Publishers Group. Includes supplementary CD with photos. 8 ½ x11, 120 pages, perfect binding, ISBN 978-1-877-673-83-2, LCCN 2008938630. Visit the author’s blog at hank-englisheducation.blogspot.com. The author will contribute a portion of the royalties earned from the sale of this book to The Wounded Warriors Project.

02/21/09