Project Overview

Eleventh and twelfth-grade students at Harborside Academy in Kenosha, Wisconsin completed this photography project with many literacy connections entirely in the Photography1 class. This project is the end of an investigation that was led by the guiding question “How do you tell a story in still frames?”

The project began with a literary analysis of The Yellow Wallpaper. This story was written in the late 1890s about a woman who seems to be suffering from depression and is locked in a room to “rest”, by her physician husband. She slowly slips into madness, believing the yellow wallpaper is trapping her. She eventually tears the wallpaper off of the wall and feels she has finally escaped. It is a well-written short story and a challenging text to all readers that can be understood on many levels.

To craft photographs, students thought beyond literal/illustrative images to figurative / conceptual visual communication. They utilized Adobe Photoshop to merge multiple images that represent emotions of the characters in the story, or their reaction as a reader. Throughout their analysis, students learned about the controversial nature of this story. At the time it was written it was considered scandalous and almost unpublishable.

To close the lesson students presented their final products to their peers. In the past years, final products have been shared publically, at exhibitions at the District’s Educational Support Center, the Anderson Art Center, the District Wide Art exhibit at the Kenosha Public Museum and the Summer Art Show as part of a community art fair.