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Essential Lens: Analyzing Photographs Across the Curriculum

Professional Development > Essential Lens: Analyzing Photographs Across the Curriculum > 3. Lives (video)

EducationEnglish Language ArtsMathematicsScienceSocial Studies & History

6-8, 9-12, College/Adult

Lives (video)

Lives explores the story of human resilience and perseverance. Middle school teacher Donald Rose uses the Migrant Mother photos by Depression-era photographer Dorothea Lange to help students understand what elements a photographer chooses to focus on to create the greatest impact. Historian Linda Gordon, biographer of FSA photographer Dorothea Lange reveals Lange's role in engaging Americans in the plight of those who were most devastated. New Orleans documentary photographers Keith Calhoun and Chandra McCormick talk about the transformation of their photographs after Hurricane Katrina and working with young photographers to preserve the city's cultural heritage.

View Transcript

Essential Lens: Lives Video Transcript

Videos

Lives explores the story of human resilience and perseverance. In this video, you’ll meet five people who illuminate the lives of others through photography.

  • Middle school teacher Donald Rose teaches from the Disaster and Government Response collection.
  • Historian Linda Gordon shares how writing a biography of FSA photographer Dorothea Lange led to a deeper understanding of the Great Depression.
  • Library of Congress photo curator Beverly Brannan speaks on the Library’s collections.
  • Documentary photographers Keith Calhoun and Chandra McCormick talk about the transformation of their photographs after Hurricane Katrina and working with youth in New Orleans.

In the Video

Lives explores the story of human resilience and perseverance. In this video, you’ll meet five people who illuminate the lives of others through photography.

  • Middle school teacher Donald Rose teaches from the Disaster and Government Response collection.
  • Historian Linda Gordon shares how writing a biography of FSA photographer Dorothea Lange led to a deeper understanding of the Great Depression.
  • Library of Congress photo curator Beverly Brannan speaks on the Library’s collections.
  • Documentary photographers Keith Calhoun and Chandra McCormick talk about the transformation of their photographs after Hurricane Katrina and working with youth in New Orleans.

Series Directory

Essential Lens: Analyzing Photographs Across the Curriculum

Credits

Produced by Oregon Public Broadcasting. © 2015
Photos downloaded from the Essential Lens site are cleared for educational use only. For other uses, please contact Annenberg Learner for permission.
  • Closed Captioning
  • ISBN: 1-57680-905-6

Related Materials

Sections

3.1 #120 Toward Los Angeles, Calif.

3.2 #121 Dust storm, Elkhart, Kan.

3.3 #205 Untitled

3.4 #207 Untitled

3.5 #215 Dorothea Lange, Resettlement Administration photographer, in California

3.6 #217 Country store on dirt road. Sunday afternoon.

3.7 #219 Franklin D. Roosevelt at desk

3.8 #221 Zollie Lyon, Negro sharecropper.

3.9 #224 Women being transported from Memphis, Tennessee to an Arkansas plantation

3.10 #227 Plantation overseer.

3.11 #228 Cotton hoer near Clarksdale, Mississippi

3.12 #230 Roy Emerson Stryker, half-length portrait, seated at desk, talking on the telephone

3.13 #232 Daughter of migrant Tennessee coal miner.

3.14 #235 Washington, Yakima Valley, near Wapato.

3.15 #236 Roy E. Stryker, photograph chief of the U.S. Farm Security Administration standing in street, probably in Washington, D.C.

3.16 #237 Group of children posing under sign.

3.17 #245 Two Children of the Mochida Family, with Their Parents, Awaiting Evacuation Bus

3.18 #246 Supper Time

3.19 #252 Elizabeth and Dora Mae Tengle, Hale County, Alabama

3.20 #257 Washington, D.C. Neighborhood children

3.21 #258 Dock Worker/Flower Sacks

3.22 #259 Mother with her children, Oaklawn Plantation

3.23 #261 The Blessing

3.24 #262 Single Men Social and Pleasure Club

3.25 #264 Man in Doorway

3.26 #265 Son of migratory worker from Kansas in squatters’ camp near Farmersville, California

3.27 #268 Scenes of the northern Shenandoah Valley, including the Resettlement Administration’s Shenandoah Homesteads

3.28 #275 Dorothea Lange in the Field, 1938

3.29 #285 Sign advertising farmland auction, New Carlisle, Ohio

3.30 #298 Pink Pride, Trombone Shorty

Lesson Plan: Activity 2 Lesson Plan

Disaster and Government Response: The Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and the New Deal

Supplementary: Migrant Camp Photograph Observations

Disaster and Government Response: The Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and the New Deal

Collections

Unit 0 Series Resources

Program 1 A Closer Look (video)

This introduction to the course models the process of analyzing photographs with teachers and students. Photography historian Makeda Best discusses the Focus In method with teachers, and educator Julie Keefe employs the method with students at a photography exhibit on "light and dark." Photography curator at the Portland Art Museum, Julia Dolan discusses how she carefully selects a set of photographs to tell a larger story.

Program 2 Witness (video)

Photographs bear witness to world events and help us to learn more about people, places, and situations -- historical and present day. Middle school teacher Donald Rose guides students in analyzing photos from school integration movements of the 1960s. Documentary film producer Ken Burns weaves photographs into historical narratives to bring the past to life. Photojournalist Louie Palu's photos take us deep into mines and war zones, and engage us with the individuals who take on those tasks.

Program 3 Lives (video)

Lives explores the story of human resilience and perseverance. Middle school teacher Donald Rose uses the Migrant Mother photos by Depression-era photographer Dorothea Lange to help students understand what elements a photographer chooses to focus on to create the greatest impact. Historian Linda Gordon, biographer of FSA photographer Dorothea Lange reveals Lange's role in engaging Americans in the plight of those who were most devastated. New Orleans documentary photographers Keith Calhoun and Chandra McCormick talk about the transformation of their photographs after Hurricane Katrina and working with young photographers to preserve the city's cultural heritage.

video 4 Evidence (video)

An image can show us otherwise invisible processes, previously undiscovered life forms, and dramatic change over time. High school teacher Rima Givot engages her students with highly magnified photos of mouse muscle to study genetically modified organisms. Scientist and photomicrographer Dennis Kunkel demonstrates the fascinating process of creating photographs of the microscopic world. Environmental photographer Gary Braasch reports on his worldwide travels to document the state of the planet through repeat photography.

Program 5 Story (video)

Every photograph tells a story: of struggle, of beauty, of community and culture. Social studies teacher Kim Kanof uses photos from the Protests and Politics collection to teach about protests around in the world in 1968. National Geographic photo editor Pamela Chen details the collaborative process of creating photo-based feature stories with design director David Whitmore. Iowa photographer Danny Wilcox Frazier discusses his work documenting the residents and images of marginalized communities across the United States.

Unit 6 Change and Resistance: Civil Rights Movements Across the Nation

Unit 7 Processes of Science: Mars, a Case Study

Unit 8 Immigration, Urbanization, and Identity: The Progressive Era City

Unit 9 Earth, Climate, and Change: Observing Human Impact

Unit 10 Protest and Politics: 1968, Year of the Barricades

Unit 11 Place, Culture, and Representation: The Art and Politics of the Harlem Renaissance

Unit 12 Disaster and Government Response: The Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and the New Deal

Unit 13 Energy: Capture, Storage, and Transformation

Unit 14 Economies and Empire: Colonialism and the Clash of National Visions

Unit 15 Garbage: The Science and Problem of What We Throw Away

Unit 16 Genetics and Bioengineering: The Societal Impacts of Mutations

program 17 Forced Displacement: Human Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice