| LTP is a year-round, in-school program where teachers are provided with carefully designed lesson plans that offer new writing techniques, basic photography skills, and effective teaching strategies that increase visual and verbal literacy while building cognitive thinking skills, self-esteem, and awareness of others.
LTP also offers classroom-based teaching residencies with artists and photographers trained specifically to teach the LTP curriculum.
All LTP lessons are aligned to National Standards of English Language Arts as well as Texas-state mandated curriculum requirements for students in 3rd to 12th grades. Students increase visual and verbal literacy while building cognitive thinking skills, self-esteem, and awareness of each other. The LTP curriculum provides students with meaningful subject matter to help them write about their own photographs and their own lives with confidence.
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| Translating
images to words. |
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In
1987, FotoFest brought teacher and photographer Wendy Ewald
and her innovative photography education project to the Children’s
Museum in Houston. Wendy Ewald achieved great success using
photography to stimulate children to take pictures and write
about their lives and dreams.
In 1990, FotoFest expanded the project to
public schools and 1,000 Houston Independent School District
children. Teacher and student response was enthusiastic and
led to establishing Literacy through Photography as a permanent
program. In 1991, FotoFest hired teacher and poet David Brown
as full-time education director to create a full-year curriculum
that modified the Ewald program.
LTP has grown form a pilot project to a full-scale photography and writing
literacy program that can be used with many different grade levels and core
classroom subjects. The photography lessons in LTP can be used with both
film-based and digital equipment. Each photo activity is accompanied by writing
exercises keyed to state-mandated language arts requirements.
LTP partners include Harris County Department of Education,
KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) Schools, Project
GRAD (Graduation Really Achieves Dreams), WITS (Writers in the Schools), the Houston
Independent School District and surrounding school districts.
School districts across Texas and in Colorado, California, Oklahoma, North Carolina, and New Mexico have also used LTP. More than 25,000 students
have benefited from the Literacy Through Photography program
since its introduction in 1990.
As an extension of the Literacy Through Photography program and FotoFest Biennial events, three curricula have been developed to complement past Biennial themes of increasing importance to our communities: Just A Drop was written during the 2004 Water Biennial, The Earth in conjunction with the 2006 Biennial and, most recently, My United States, a curriculum developed around the theme of the 2010 Biennial: Contemporary U.S. Photography. During the FOTOFEST2010 Biennial over 800 students toured the FotoFest exhibitions.
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| The year-long LTP program begins with teacher training sessions
held each fall. During the year teachers receive feedback
and classroom visits from LTP staff, guided tours of FotoFest
exhibitions, and the option to receive visiting artists in
their classrooms. In May, FotoFest hosts it annual FotoFence, an exhibition
of Literacy Through Photography student work, at the FotoFest Gallery. |
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