The objective of this class is to introduce students to the final chapter of Seeing and Writing, which I present as an opportunity to purposefully apply the principles with which students are already familiar to current events/images/topics of special interest to them.

The assignment below originated in my second semester freshman composition course. It is the second portfolio in a series of three, and it satisfies the requirement for a research component. Here the students are actually writing an I-Search paper that incorporates personal research, field research, and traditional library research. We also use film, in this case “The Truman Show� starring Jim Carrey, as a resource for ideas for this paper. The topic of the portfolio and the subsequent final research project is Reality vs. Make-Believe…in other words, how do we decide what is real and what is not in today’s fast-paced, mediated society?

My friends don’t ask me to take pictures of them anymore. I get bored with traditional pictures: the typical pose, the typical frame, with faces and bodies being effectively placed to include background, and with eyes meeting the lens perfectly. I tend to frame them differently at the last moment, stepping to the side for an alternate angle, or zooming in on the eyes. These always seem more memorable to me. Unfortunately, my friends think so, too, but in a negative way. So, I enjoy getting to play around with published pictures in front of a class, especially when they are already in Seeing and Writing and available online. Chapter 7 is great for this. A lot of students are aware of how photographs can be digitally manipulated, but they probably don’t think about the mundane, crucial manipulations that happen more often: images being framed in the moment and cropped later, and images being lightened and darkened. I like thinking about alternatives, especially with photographs (which is good for when I teach this chapter, but not for when I take pictures of friends).

I ask students to write for 10-15 minutes in their journal (listing and brainstorming) about icons they identify with and why. Then, I ask them if any of the icons they wrote about are people. (Actors, Musicians, Sports figures, etc.) Usually, they will have chosen to write about some people in their journal, and if not, I have them write down a few. Next, I ask them write about how and why they think these people have influenced their lives.