Using Photography to Inspire Writing 7

By Hank Kellner

(continued from page 1)

Using Iconic Photos

In the Humanities Division at Fullerton College, Fullerton, California, Bruce Henderson uses iconic photos created by photojournalists during the Vietnam War to stimulate students’ thinking and writing. “One of the images I present is the image of a Buddhist monk who has set himself on fire at a Saigon intersection,” he writes. “This leads to a discussion about the nature and effectiveness of protest, as well as to an inquiry into the situation(s) about which the monks were protesting.” Henderson also uses the iconic photo of the national police chief of South Vietnam executing a bound “suspect” during the Tet offensive, as well as the unforgettable photo of a naked girl fleeing her napalmed village to stimulate discussion and writing in his classes.

Photos from Magazines

Mary Lang is an Instructor in the English and Humanities Division at Wharton County Junior College, Richmond, Texas. Lang directs her students to bring in 3-5 photographs from magazines. Then she asks them to choose a photo and use it to write a narrative or a series of narratives based on the image they have chosen. Occasionally, instead of asking the students to choose a photo, Lang creates a lottery in which the students “win” photos other than those they have selected themselves. “This has worked very well,” she writes. Lang indicates that she uses this technique to encourage students to write not only narratives, but also other forms of writing. “For example,” she concludes, “I’ve found that it works very well as a journal assignment.”

Photos of Ancestors

In her classes at California State University at Monterey Bay and at Cabrillo College, Barbara Raney directs her students to read Richard Rodriguez’ essay about a photo display in San Francisco. “In this essay,” she writes, “Rodriguez asserts that anyone with a camera can create meaningful images.” Then Raney shows the students photos of her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other relatives and asks them to write memoirs based on photos of their own relatives. “The students do a good job of speculating about how/why their subjects changed since the photographs were taken,” she reports.

You Don’t Always Need a Written Prompt

Sometimes you don’t need a written prompt to trigger ideas that lead to written compositions. Here’s an example of how a member of a senior citizen’s writers’ group responded to the photo shown here.

“This photo took me back to the days when my kids and I would spend hours searching for sharks’ teeth along the sandy shores of Jacksonville Beach in Florida, or back to any number of beach memories that are strung throughout my early years. How well I remember other days in Atlantic City when they had a horse that jumped off the Steel Pier. But that was years ago.” •

Next: Using Photography to Inspire Writing 8

© 2009 Hank Kellner. All rights reserved.

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