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NYDailyNews.com

NYDailyNews.com

NYDailyNews.com

NYDailyNews.com

NYDailyNews.co

NYDailyNews.com

NYDailyNews.com

NYDailyNews.com

NYDailyNews.com

A curriculum guide for using Daily News photo archives as spatial and electronic portals for addressing literacy, multi-content education, national and state standards

and test preparation goals. Includes activities earmarked for ELL learners, and for incorporating the use of

electronic editions of the newspaper into classroom plans.

Made possible in cooperation

with the following partner:

Big Town Big Picture

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Table of Contents

Introduction by Dr. Rose Reissman 4

CaptuRIng MeMoRable MoMents Building Our City 6

pRIMe MoVeRs Most FREQUENTLY Photographed Civic Business Profiles 10

tuRnIng poInts Constructing NYC History 15

lanDMaRks NYC Public Places to Preserve 20

general References and new York City 24

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Powerful photographs in the Daily News immediately convey the spirit of the city to readers. Photographs can compel readers

to read the text or caption. “Captured” images engage readers in ongoing issues, stories, concerns, construction, buildings and social changes, with an immediacy that brings the topic or subject within shutter frame “sight.”

Often, the image can amplify factual detail to include emotional coloring and demonstrate the affect/effect of the event, person, building, landmark or moment on the readers. Readers who are from English Learner backgrounds or have spatial learning styles are instantly part of The News “big picture” audience.

Big Town has chosen this year to plumb the Daily News’ rich archive of photographic images, and to focus on at least four strands of Building Our City images: Memorable Moments, Prime

Movers, Turning Points, Landmarks and other Public Places. Each of these has multiple connections to grades 4-12 English Language Arts, Social Studies, Mathematics, Science and Technology and Fine Arts mandated learning. Use of the eEdition (exact electronic replicas of the print editions) encourages students to expand their Internet research, technology presentation fluencies and workplace skills, using easily accessible Daily News and other resources as presentation formats.

Documents, photographs and graphic representations/diagrams, are crucial components of all standardized tests, including the sat.

Most importantly, this year’s Big Town-Big Picture lens allows students to study these accessible, meaningful and enthralling documents in a way that will draw them into

BIG TOWN, THROUGH THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S LENS

Big Town Big Picture

“Sometimes you can tell a large story with a tiny subject.” –Eliot Porter (photographer, 1901-1990)

“Photography is finding out what can happen in the frame.”–Gary Winogard (photographer, 1928-1984)

“A photograph . . . should be a significant document, a penetrating statement.”

–Bernice Abbot (American artist, journalist, photographer, 1898-1991)

Introduction by Dr. Rose Reissman

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the ongoing rhythms of city construction and operating life, either as the subject or as one of those documenting a subject through the camera’s “eye.”

All activities are correlated with the balanced literacy approach and address NYS key standards.

Students will have the opportunity to select from a variety of Building Our City/landmarks-centered projects including: museums on school sites/online exhibits, picture book biographies, photographic portraits in civic courage, photographic timelines, NYC Kids for Kids Public Places/Landmarks historic atlas, Red Grooms/New York Botanical Garden Holiday Models of NYC Landmarks, Turning Points Stamp Design Series, Photo Re-enactments, Photos as Set Designs, Prime Mover/Builder Poster Designs, Prime Mover Photo Essays and Private Places Matter.

Whether they are interpreting the photographs or creating their own photographic presentations, students will be immersed in the creative, interactive viewer receivership of New York Daily News photographic journalism for “camera click” creativity!

Dr. Reissman is a literacy consultant for PS 7 in the Bronx and Ditmas Educational Complex in Brooklyn. She is compiling Literacy Best Practices for NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English). Her latest book in production is Authors Online, published by Corwin Press (2009).

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Images, Icons — Making a Museum …. Building a City Building Exhibit …. One Image Layer at a Time Many historic moments, events and period New York City building experiences are captured through photographs.

As students work on this project, they use the Big Town Daily News photographs as inspiration for their own research into other images (including graphic cartoon and diagram representations) of the moments.

This project can be integrated into elementary current events/social studies, expository/report writing, informational document research, specific middle school social studies history, art, technology training, science and mathematics content.

Final products of this versatile whole-class, small-group or independent-learning project can be included in student writing portfolios, student test sophistication DBQ training, on-site and online Memorable Moments Museum Displays/Expos, American History Day and other multidisciplinary content forums.

aim:

n In what ways can photographs provide key facts and informational data about specific historic events, personalities and community experiences?

n How might closely examining these photographs as documents inspire us to identify other aspects of these moments that we want to learn more about?

n What presentation format and vehicle will enable us to share what we discover about these key city building periods with our peers, family and other audiences?

objectives:

Students can work on this as a class; small groups can select favorite aspects of discovered facts and information, to be further researched. Alternatively, individual students can develop this as part of an extended enrichment or in-depth period research on the middle or secondary level, with a National History Day/Expo end product in mind.

Students will research, using specific historic and personality print, online (Web site, audio/video clip, Daily News photo archive, American Memory archive). Cultural and, if possible, first-person oral history resources can also be used to expand content knowledge.

Students will prepare by practicing on display exhibits with explanatory captions and signs, as well as bibliographic/webliography citations, detailing their research findings.

Students on middle and high school levels will also include a descriptive and a reflective essay detailing their research process, starting from the initial Big Town photograph, through use of

Capturing Memorable Moments Building Our City

“I want to only capture a minute part of reality.” “To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition in the fraction of a second of the significance of an event.”

– Henri Cartier Bresson French photojournalist (1908-2004)

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Capturing Memorable Moments Building Our Cityprimary and secondary resources to develop the exhibit.

Students will present on-site, short oral discussions/tours of their exhibits using written notes/scripts.

Material:

Students should have access to the eDaily News and the Internet.

The teacher may opt to download a set of Big Town, Building Our City relevant print and library resources or have the librarian set aside books for the project.

The teacher may also want to post relevant city landmark Web sites as starters, including suggestions that students contact the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

optional:

Foam board, triptych displays (same as used for school fairs), plastic wrap, cellophane, masking tape, markers, etc.

Digital camera for capturing presentations, uploading and creating online projects to be shared with others, when completed.

Mini lesson

Picture Walk — Think Aloud

(excellent opportunity for explicit alignment to document test sophistication training, and essay question linkage for secondary students.)

Have students focus on a Building NYC Memorable Moment, Big Town photo. Begin with at least three facts/specific data that are apparent through close examination of the photo. Target clothes, expressions, actions, environment, setting, architecture and period design.

Have students add facts/specific data.

Next, elicit at least one question that the photo suggests, e.g., How were the lives of workers building the original el (elevated subway system) protected during the building process?

Elicit at least two more unanswered questions or missing concerns, from observation or from prior knowledge.

options for small group Work

Guided Writing (Research) and Literacy Responses

Students will work in pairs or in groups of no more than four students, as either FACT CHECKERS, FACT FINDERS or BACKGROUND INFORMATION/PERIOD RESEARCHERS, using online and print resources to find out more information or data as identified in the initial picture walk. Encourage them to investigate at least five -10 period details.

Challenge them to use the Daily News Picture Archives, American Memory to collect at least two to four other period photos to complement the Big Town one. One person within their group will compare, contrast and link these photos with the original Big Town one selected, and this person will develop one-three paragraphs explaining how the photographs are linked.

For students preferring to work in small groups, offer a separate option of serving as contemporary photo forensics iInvestigators. They will work on responding to the unanswered questions and omitted data identified in the mini-lesson. Challenge them to come up with at least five-seven additional unanswered questions. Ask that they post these questions, and carefully chart the resources they use to answer the questions.

additional Individual options

1. Literacy Linkers Some students may choose to amplify the content information of the memorable moment through reading a biography or historical work focused on that particular individual or event. Ask these students to prepare a three-minute oral presentation, as well as a relevant poster or list of key quotes/unique facts that they identify through their print exploration; these can serve as captions for the Big Town photos. These students

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also need to document the sources for their presentation in the preferred APA or MLA bibliographic format used by the school.

2. E-Researchers Students can review/topic-key word, search the eEdition archives, as well as the print Daily News and other online archives, for photos, quotes and commentary about the subject of the photo. These students can also prepare a three-minute oral presentation, and download photos, or even thumbprint visuals/graphics to be used with the original Big Town Building Our City photo. Remind them to credit Web sources for their material.

3. Certain students may have access to family members or friends who recall reading about and experiencing the memorable moment in the ongoing building the city process captured. Students can interview these family members to discern their reflections. Student interviewers can use the photos as starting points for adult reflections. Adults must sign all material submitted to their interviewers. Family members or friends who experienced these moments while residing in another country or serving overseas can provide unique perspectives to amplify student exploration of the moment.

share out:

Project Culminations, Potential Authentic Literacy Outreach

1. After students have had time to work during class and at home in their small groups or independently, devote a full class period to sharing their findings, research, visuals, identified online and unearthed in print resources. Should there be insufficient time in the mandated curricula schedule, the teacher or preferably a small team of students can create a visual BIG TOWN, BIG PICTURE MEMORABLE MOMENTS display using a bulletin board or a panoramic room overview of the moment, using the original Daily News photo as the centerpiece of the diverse student research. Invite other peer classes

to react to the work; students can create a visitor reaction/response sheet for feedback. This display could also be used for parent night reaction and evaluation.

2. Use the student teams and individual products, to work together on creating a Memorable Moments in Building Our City History Museum.

Classes will be involved in extensive Memorable Moments in Building Our City study; they will focus on enhanced discussion, research, critical reading, grammatical conventions, standardized test sophistication, DBQ essay training and literacy response.

This will require the class taking two periods to organize their already completed “collection” into the following components, for a museum display that can also serve as a History Day, History Expo, Multicultural, Literacy or Family Expo presentation class project:

a. An exhibit title

b. Display of signs/posters, reports (already developed by students), in classroom/outside hallway/gym areas, etc. (With the principal’s permission, of course!)

c. Have a team of student volunteers develop a concise, tri-fold brochure and a three-five paragraph essay, detailing how the exhibit was inspired by the Big Town Series.

d. Create other signs and posters for the exhibits — student reports, commentaries, downloads and photos of adult interview subjects.

e. Identify at least two student docents/guides to present the exhibit to adult visitors, other peer visitors, other teachers, etc.

Optional components depending on space, time and Internet/digital photography space access available:

f. Use of class/site laptop by two students to provide visitors with a cyber tour of online Daily

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News relevant photo archives and eEdition as well, as other Web resources identified by students as they investigated the historic moment or personality.

g. Oral history presentations by adult subjects, with special connections, reflections or international perspectives on the moment or personality included.

h. Dramatic readings from key biographies done by costumed/uniformed students (e.g., construction worker, utility company technician, etc.) or non-fiction works that are relevant to the moment, performed by either the original student researchers or by other student theatrical volunteers.

3.

a. Students will select no fewer than two-five quotes about photography from key photographers such as Henri Cartier Bresson, Dorthea Lange, Paul Strand, Edward Steichen, Ansel Adams and others.

Students can be challenged to reflect on the ways in which the selected Big Town Big Picture photograph demonstrates or refutes the ideas of these key photographers, or on how the Daily News photographer who took the picture would respond to this quote. If this option is selected, offer students extensive validating practice in DBQ-linked essay formats that appear on elementary through high school Regents standardized tests.

a. Teachers may provide enrichment options for some or all of their learners to create sample American history, world history or English DBQ essay questions linking the Daily News photo with quotes.

b. As a bonus, students can review peer responses to their “test” questions, from within their own classes or from other peer groups, supplementing test sophistication training in an innovative and student-owned format, using this Big Town feature.

4. English Language Learners and other students, who have traveled to, lived in

or visited foreign countries, or can read other languages, could research and share online, the reaction of others to these New York City memorable moments, (which also impressed persons and cultures throughout our connected globe). Have students share these reports, visual presentations or even in-person testimony by adults, in native language or then have translated into English.

5. Interior Monologue - Graphic Narrative opportunities.

Some Memorable Moment photographs capture vivid personalities –recognizable or unknown — in very evocative experiences. Although, by definition, the photo captures only the image, the viewer/Daily News reader can “hear”/”sense” the thoughts and emotions of that person (or even that inanimate object, (e.g., Brooklyn Bridge, RFK Bridge, Bull on Wall Street).

Students can “voice” these underlying thoughts or emotions as interior monologues, or use the comic book-graphic narrative format, with its “thought bubble” tools (or use Comic Book Creator software) to provide another level of expression, for the already-powerful Big Town photo. Students with access to online audio slide shows can create an online PowerPoint slide show with the Daily News photo downloaded from the eEdition, as well as their own, voiced monologue or narration. Of course, many of the Memorable Moment photographs may already have famous poems or statements voiced about them — e.g., Walt Whitman’s Crossing Brooklyn Bridge — which students can use with attribution.

Learning Standards: Mathematics, Science and Technology-Standards 1, 2, 5, 6 and 7 – The Arts Standards 2, 3, and 4, English Language Arts 1, 2, 3, and 4, Languages Other than English 1 and 2 and Social Studies 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

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Photography can instantly capture key leaders in action or in reflection. These powerful Big Town visual documents wordlessly convey character-building qualities, such as leadership and determination, that have positively transformed NYC as we know it and have inspired persons around the globe.

Photographic portraits of these prime movers/construction workers are a particularly rich entry point for a broad spectrum of learners, including those whose learning style is spatial, English Language Learners, and special needs learners. Deep lessons in civic purpose, determination and perseverance in the face of adversity can be learned through examination of these prime movers’ faces, movements, gestures and physicality. The photos enhance spoken literacy, lifelong biography reading, classroom community and test sophistication skills using visual documents.

aim:

In what ways can an examination of a few photographs of key leaders be used to help us “read”/interpret character traits and values?

n How can online and print sources help create a visual time line that can make the achievements of these key individuals “come alive” for us, in an exciting, graphic way?

n How can the Daily News eEdition thumbnail format help us to “stamp” the achievements of Building Our City Prime Movers into a powerful online or on-site presentation that can enhance standard-written biographic reports?

n How can a series of researched images of a prime mover, taken from various periods of that person’s life, become the key text of a wordless picture book, or a picture book biography, meant to introduce the achievements of this individual to young learners?

n In what ways can the prime mover’s own quotes or key comments/poetry about himself/herself be combined with photographs to create a powerful, visually enhanced statement/visual of this individual’s values?

Prime MoversMost FREQUENTLY PhotographedCivic Business Profiles

“It is one thing to photograph people. It is another thing to make others care about them by revealing the core of their humanness.”–

— Paul Strand (photographer, 1890-l976)

“Photography . . . is a major force in explaining man to man.”

― Edward Steichen (photographer, painter, 1879-1973)

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objectives:

Students will:

n Use the Big Town Prime Mover/City Builder photographs/graphics as a starting point for researching online in the eEdition; they will use key N.Y. Daily News archives and other sources, as well as evocative photographic images of the prime mover at pivotal points during the individual’s life.

n Have the biographic print and online research opportunity, to align particular images of the Prime Mover with personal quotes or commentary, by others that fit these images.

n Critically interpret, discuss and evaluate the ways in which these images “reveal” the prime mover’s character, “document” the personality’s achievements and “timeline” key points in the character’s life.

n Use applicable graphic organizers, e.g. Venn diagrams, stepladders, cause and effect maps, time lines and other formats (e.g., available eEdition thumbnail and back-to-back and trading card templates) to integrate their photographic documents into concrete posters and online presentations that engagingly depict the Prime Mover’s life.

Material:

Teachers should pre-select grade/curricula level Prime Movers for classroom and independent research focus. They could check out from the library, download or reserve at the school library a collection of relevant individual and collective biographies. Students can also be given a list of pertinent web resources as “starters” for their research.

Highly recommended that for the mini-lesson

Teachers should use at least two images of the Prime Mover/City Builder beyond what is offered in the Big Town feature. Teachers can use the eEdition search feature, or the Daily News archives, to get additional images.

Multicolored markers, poster board, glue sticks, scissors and colored paper should be available for on-site materials, to create some of the

suggested graphic organizers and posters for this module (if students do not already bring them to class or the classroom does not already have them accessible).

optional:

Students will benefit tremendously from classroom access to the Internet for biographic research. They can use Kidspiration and Power Point to facilitate this and create many of the graphic organizers suggested in this project.

Since these same graphic organizers appear on most standardized tests, creating them as part of this module enhances student capacity to respond correctly to these types of questions on Social Studies, Science and Reading tests.

Mini lesson:

Picture Read-Aloud/Interpret-Interactive Discussion

Start the lesson by posting on the board or chart, two-four photographic /graphic images of the Prime Mover/City Builder, including those in Big Town as starters.

Even if the Prime Mover is familiar to the students, challenge them “just” based on the individual’s facial features, stance, gestures or position in the photograph/graphic to identify personality and character traits of that individual.

For example, the teacher may use an extended hand of the individual touching a child or adult to suggest that the prime mover “cares” about helping others, or a smile to indicate his/her optimism and openness to the future.

Prompt and engage students to identify other potential character traits from gestures, features, photographed interactions, dress (e.g., formal, casual or unbuttoned shirt) and gaze.

Have students deliberately “make character and action connections” between at least two of the photographic images on display.

Chart the hypothetical characters and “purpose connections” they make.

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Based on their visual analysis of the Prime Mover, challenge the students to identify what kinds of research and informational tools they would need to use to confirm or refute the character values and purposes that they have “interpreted.“

Chart the responses generated by the students. These should minimally include: online and print research about the personality, review of classroom history texts, investigation of the personality’s own writings or the writings of others (reporters, historians and authors) about the person. In some instances, first person or primary source analyses of the individual may also be a potential source of verifying information.

options for small group Work

Prime Mover/City Builder Trading Cards featuring NYC Character/Civic Values to Succeed; Prime Mover PowerPoint/Photographic time line poster; Prime Mover/City Builder Poster (a mix of photographic images and key quotes or commentary); Mapping the Prime Mover’s key “moves” on the road to success (using map or cause-and-effect chart).

Guided Reading and Writing

Offer students multiple “end product” options to use as a “frame” or target for their research, including the following options:

In addition to selecting an end product for their research, have the small groups (no more than four students) or teams of students identify at least one target audience for their product.

For example, their trading cards could be for younger or same-grade peers, while their Prime Mover Posters could be for display in the school’s public areas. Students can investigate how they can use the eEdition Archives, search functions and Daily News Pix, as online resources for their “small group” activities.

Send at least one representative of the class to the school’s traditional print library collection, or have that group representative work accumulating print and downloaded materials

available in the classroom.

If the Prime Mover/City Builder is contemporary or is someone whose influence might have been directly experienced by current school staff, family members or community members, suggest that the group identify such a person and assign a group member to interview him/her.

Finally, encourage those students who are fluent in a language other than English to go online or to research foreign language print newspapers and books to identify coverage of the NYC Prime Mover there. This will help to expand the students’ understanding of this person’s significance to an even broader global audience; the exercise will allow students who are fluent in languages other than English to add their expertise to the project.

Teach each small group how to prepare to report on the type of research and resources (secondary, primary, print, human and online) they will use to create their end products for their target audiences.

share out

Offer all groups the opportunity to share their designs, resources, audiences and plans for producing their end products. Be sure that an opportunity is provided for members of all groups to suggest ways in which these efforts can be enhanced, compared to the initial plans. Groups should also be encouraged to post and to share particularly rich online, print materials and sites they find; these initiatives may also be useful for other similar projects.

Project a date for sharing of the end products; if appropriate, and possible, ask one class member to create signs that translate the products or introduce the product in at least one other community-relevant language (e.g., Spanish, French, Russian, Korean, Cantonese, Tagalog, etc.).

The outreach for Big Town-inspired investigation can be easily expanded beyond the classroom.

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While the ultimate products (e.g., City Builder Trading Cards, Prime Mover Photographic Timelines, Prime Mover Pointer Posters and Prime Mover Mapping Success organizers) can be displayed and presented with captions in the classroom, other venues should be utilized as well.

With permission from, and under adult supervision, the display can be orally presented by students at an assembly, to a senior citizens or local neighborhood civic group. Students can photocopy their presentation, desktop-publish on cardboard stock trading, or otherwise improvise duplication of their work for sharing. They can enlist adult audiences for help or duplicate inspirational posters to share with family and community. MS Publisher will facilitate this process, with an alternative of hand-drawn posters, which can also be photocopied.

If students have the opportunity to present their Trading Cards project to younger or grade/age peers, they may also want to use other City Builder Prime Movers in the ongoing Big Town series, as models to inspire peers to create additional Trading Cards. Students may even want to nominate Prime Movers for the series and share their efforts with the Daily News Newspaper in Education Department.

extensions:

Making Connections

1. Students who identify extensive quotes by or about the Prime Mover/City Builder, or who read extensive biographic material and news commentary, can develop their own oral presentations (three-five), slide shows, and monologues using “actual” words and images of the Prime Mover. Some students may enjoy dressing like the Prime Mover and assuming his/her key gestures as part of this presentation. This is an authentic dramatic vehicle called “re-enactment,” which is regularly featured at the NY Historical Society, other history museums and interpreted on stage by Anne Deavere Smith (professor of arts, stage and TV actress), among others. Big Town photographs can assure the factual

accuracy of the visual depictions and make close document analysis “come concretely” alive in details of costume and stance.

Guided Reading and Writing

Each of the following projects can be effectively used for National History Day competitions and Literacy Expos.

2. One of the most accessible genres of children’s literature is the picture book biography. Often key authors and illustrators in this genre use photographs to inspire their illustrations and to help make the stories of their subjects “photographically” real for their young readers. Award-winning author Bryan Collier (NYC writer, illustrator) uses this technique in books such as “Martin’s Big Words,” “Barack Obama Son of Promise, Child of Hope” and others. Further, teams of students (perhaps one illustrator and one text author), may enjoy working together to combine photographic images of the Prime Mover and his/her achievements, as well as inspiring quotes in younger grades (1-3) and age-appropriate formats. Teams would review some of the Collier works, then create short texts from their research, with a mix of actual downloaded or clipped photos of the Prime Mover, or illustrations using the photos for details. With their teacher’s permission and supervision, these works could be read aloud by their creative teams to younger grade classrooms (or, for reading workshops, at after school programs or in the local public library/school library). Beyond the joy of sharing the Prime Mover’s values and accomplishments with a young audience of citizens, the teams who put these works together are also trying out a “real” children’s publishing vehicle. They could even go on to author Caldecott Award-winning works!

3. The graphic novel — once and still known as the comic book — is now a highly respected genre of fiction and non-fiction, with Art Spiegelman winning a Pulitzer Prize for “Maus.”

Student artists can work on using the Prime Movers photos and text research as the basis

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of short transformations of class traditionally authored biographic reports, or monologues or time lines into the text bubbles, captions and two page spreads/splashes of this format. This enrichment can engage spatial learners, ELL learners and the great expanse of students who create unassigned graphics/cartoons in the backs of their notebooks. The process of critically reading and examining print, online, archival and current texts and documents to extract appropriate facts, quotes, events and achievements for, say, a 15-page comic book /graphic novel panel or Comic Book Creator presentation offers intense “actual product” based critical reading and writing practices. Products of this project should be read aloud to younger or grade age peers. The graphic novel team should also prepare a short demonstration of how they “transformed” texts, photos, graphics and other data into comic art narrative format.

4. Prime Mover/City Builder: Present Day Parallel — Quantum Leaping Through Time to Team for NYC

Many of the Past Prime Movers inspire or could offer valuable insights to their 21st-century NYC peers. What would Robert Moses say to the team building the World Trade Center Memorial, or to Donald Trump? What common ground would A. Philip Randolph have with Amanda Burden, Jacqueline Onassis or Charles Rangel?

Students can use the photos of City Builder Prime Movers, coupled with photos of those who are their contemporaries in mission or role today, to inspire political cartoons with imaginary dialogue between them. This dialogue must be grounded in accurate newspaper and print-reported achievements, and statements by these current and past Prime Movers. This project provides a problem construct that challenges and develops critical thinking and lateral problem solving, as it also authenticates practice with political cartoons which appear on most social studies standardized tests.

5. Students can also become TEST DESIGNERS as part of invaluable, “fun”-infused test practice; they will use the time lines, trading

cards, political cartoons and any picture book texts or posters that they create for this module, as material for creating their own multiple choice test questions and document-based essay questions. They can “field test” their questions with grade peers, as well as get their peers’ feedback. In creating their own questions using their own Prime Mover inspired texts, students are working with the formats of the tests as a non-fiction genre, while expanding their own test-taking skills. Test design “de-stress-es” test taking as well, since the test-taker student is also a test-design insider/creator.

Learning Standards: MST-1, 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7-The Arts 1, 2, 3 and 4, English 1, 2, 3 and 4,Languages Other than English 1 and 2, and Social Studies 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

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Photographs capture historic “change happening,” within the “still” of a click. Thorough and intense examination of key Big Town “turning points” photographs can serve as powerful student/learner entry points for studying key transitional political, social and cultural changes in American life. These photos afford the student/learner an immediacy and accessibility to the “looks,” “expressions,” “physical constructs” and “moves” of pivotal shifts in history. Through the use of these Big Town documents, students can be inspired to become lifelong, concerned, aware and civically engaged participants and analysts of change. Hopefully, they will respond, as needed, to city building turning points and work to bring about even more necessary, preferred turning points/reforms.

aim:

In what ways do photographs of city buildings serve as a visual history with compressed text detailing endings of one political, social or cultural movement and beginnings of another?

n How can these photographic documents be used to inspire detailed narratives that offer accurate historic landmark data about civic, physical space, legal and social changes?

n In what ways might these photographs inspire students with cameras in hand or with sketch pads, to seize “turning points” in their neighborhood landmark lives; shifts in space, cultural, legal and demographic areas?

Material

In addition to the Big Town photographs, the teacher may want to download beforehand, Daily News, period-appropriate archival photographs; they could pre-assign students to download period archival photographs and search eEditions for relevant texts and additional photos.

For students to peruse resources, as part of their small group work, educators should also provide a collection of period-specific school

Turning PointsConstructing NYC History

“It is one thing to photograph people. It is another thing to make others care about them by revealing the core of their humanness.”–

— Edward Steichen

“Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of

unrolling itself before my eyes.”

— Henri Cartier Bresson)

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and public library print materials relevant to the landmark turning points.

Internet access should be available, if possible, for students to take full advantage of these opportunities for growth and variety in their research skills.

optional Material:

Triptych poster/foam boards used for expos and history displays; glue, markers, scissors, masking and scotch tape.

If students have access to Photoshop, they will enjoy using it for one of the extension activities, even though the same activity can be done through collages.

Use of technology and access to a copier will also enhance some of the extension activities, although these can be done by hand as fine arts projects as well.

objectives:

Students will:

n Effect targeted note-taking and critical analysis of photographs, for relevant, transitional period data.

n Organize their transition period data from the photographs into a before and after/ending documentation of one era, and beginning/ending of another era, formatted in text/narrative.

n Will use the eEdition, archival Internet and print resources (including international and foreign language editions) to supplement their historical, social and multicultural understandings of the transitions.

n Will display/demonstrate their content learning with an end product selected from a variety of visual arts options and formats, including: eEditions-inspired thumbnail portraits, Past, Present and Preferred Futures Photographic Triptychs, Suggested Photographic “Landmark Turning Points” Stamp Designs or series, Transitional Landmark Lives Photographic Period Frames and Metro My Block E/Print Edition Transition

Point displays.

Do now

Pre-organize motivators to “personalize” the mini-lesson for students

n Challenge students to go online in small groups, using the eEdition, or to work independently with the hard copy/print Daily News to find a photograph which represents a present personality, event or place which they wish would be transformed into another appearance/reality.

n Ask that the students identify this personality, event or space, as well as detail in what ways they would like to see this personality, space or event transformed.

After they have had at least five minutes to “capture” one such Daily News photograph or graphic image, give them the opportunity to share aloud these photographs that they have identified as possibilities for “landmark transition” status. Encourage various students to explain why they feel that their proposed transitions would be beneficial to the personality selected, the landmark’s outreach or the setting/neighborhood/space.

Mini-lesson:

Interactive targeted discussion

Use the photographs that the students have identified as “starters.” Remind students that they had suggested “changes” or “transitions” for better that they would like to see in current (or at least, recent) Daily News photographs.

Explain that, as part of the Big Town series, writers and photographers have gone through past (archival) issues to identify instances where the Daily News photographers captured “landmark transitions” ― turning points taking place.

Have your students focus on the term “turning point.” Encourage them to brainstorm words or images that they associate with that term. As they share their responses, record them on the

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board or have other students draw images they themselves associate with this term.

If the class has foreign-language speakers or ELL students, have them share terms for turning points in other languages and give the literal translation of the terms. e.g. tournant — French – turning; or momento decisivo – Spanish – moment of decision, etc.

Expand their understanding of “turning points” by having them explain how they occur or affect personal lives, a country’s/city’s history or a neighborhood’s/ local landmark’s appearance/culture.

The mini-lesson discussion can include “turning points” that students or their families have in some way experienced.

Move on from this grounding discussion to the “sharing” of the selected Big Town Big Picture photo.

Start the exploration by asking students to detail the personal, space/use, architectural and social changes that are conveyed, solely based on the photographic details, mood, movement, texture and energy of the document.

Record the details that they supply. Ask your class to share their initial emotional reaction to this transition, and gauge whether, at first look, they think that this “turning point” in the landmark appearance/use was a favorable one — a good one; or whether it was not good for the subject (the community, U.S.A., world).

Allow students to conclude the mini lessons with their personal responses.

options for small group Work:

Guided Reading, Research and Writing:

Divide students into small groups or pairs. Randomly assign them the following chronological research designations: “Before/Prior” the Turning Point; “After Change Happened.”

Tell the students that each group or team is to tackle their sequenced time period using their

Big Town-Landmark picture as a starter. Ask that for each designation, they identify at least two other visual documents, and note the URLs or printed sources of the documents.

Strongly suggest that they use the eEdition and Daily News archives as primary resources, as well as the related print collection of materials provided by the teacher in the room.

Using their preliminary data collection details, data from the additional photographic and text resources which demonstrate how the “turning point” photograph captured actual historic changes as a graphic record, instruct students to assemble.

Remind students that they can use the familiar Triptych display foam board format, or can scan or mount their BEFORE and AFTER images, using thumbnail or other formats as seen on the eEditions.

Invite students to work together as a team, to prepare both a visual display of “before” and “after” graphics, accompanied by source documentation and explanations, as well as a three-minute oral presentation of their research process and findings.

share out

Give each team an opportunity to present its Before and After “turning point” research and reflections on the process of their on-line/eEdition and print version investigation.

Have each group react to other group presentations, with commentary on the findings for prior and after “turning points,” detailing, how other groups’ findings parallel or conflict with their own assigned period of research.

Have the students themselves select presentations which can complete the arch of Big Town Turning Point representations with “good fit” prior and after turning point visuals.

Finally, if students have access to Photoshop or can photocopy the Turning Point-selected photos, they can transform the authentic Turning Point photograph into a document; this document “shows” a preferred Turning Point as

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they would like to see it.

Alternatively, they can alter “after” turning point actual images, (via Photoshop/scissor/collage or glue stick), to “show” a preferred after/preferred future version.

The two completed small group (one “prior” and one “after”) Turning Point arches can be photographed or presented to parallel classes. If classes have access to a grade or school Web site, these projects can be uploaded for review and to invite distance audience commentary.

The projects can also form the core of Big Town Big Picture-inspired arches, for National History Day or Multicultural Expos.

extensions/Making Connections:

1. American Literature/World Literature classes can enlarge the images of these presentations or video screens of them, to be used as backdrops/sets. These will be ideal backgrounds for readings from key fiction or non-fiction period commentary, or for classic literature/period letters/oral histories. The eEdition and online research of Daily News archives can also provide authentic reportage to be read with the Turning Point photos as set designs or presented as slides in style of the eEdition.

Turning Point music can be used to underscore or score the spoken presentations, thus making the period research come theatrically alive for peer or family/community participation and feedback. This extension expands multiple document research through validating theater, also enhances spoken English skills and taps kinesthetic and musical learning styles.

2. Landmark Stamp Designs.

Many stamps are inspired by key historic photographs and graphics, or they feature a series of several evocative images. Students can select those multiple prior turning point, turning point and post turning point images that they feel are the most powerful and data rich examples. Participants can develop a thumbnail version manually trimmed and

reduced/using a copier or scanned sizing, as seen on the eEdition series sheet. This sheet can be accompanied by short captions for the suggested stamps, including the sources of each selected image, and with a short paragraph of data about the “turning point.”

With the teacher/principal’s permission, students can display these proposals as classroom online exercises, as digital uploads or mount them in class as a turning point learning display. Exhibits can also be part of American History Day entries. Depending on the turning point, these exhibits can be shared with appropriate groups such as the City Landmarks Preservation Trust, the New York Transit Workers Union (last elevated subway line) and other similar organizations.

3. Framing Turning Points - One thumbnail photograph at a time.

Using the thumbnail feature of the eEdition, a scanner or a photocopy machine’s image reduction function, students can be challenged to create a before and after collage/frame of actual photograph thumbnails, to be used as a frame for the Big Town and other identified Turning point images.

Learning Standards. This manipulation of photographs achieves Mathematics, Science and Technology NYS standards in its use of design, information systems for depicting relationships and themes that connect history, fine arts and civic life.

Students participate in an arts exhibit which can go beyond National History Day. Their work can be displayed at a local gallery or used as a demonstration model for a school’s digital photography or after school arts group. Their work can also be shared with the profiled landmark, for wider exposure.

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4. My Block — Metro Landmark or Landmark-to-be;

Turning Points — “Triptych” -ing My Neighborhoods

While first-hand experience and deep understanding of a historic local, state, USA or international turning point often requires a young person being at least a teenager, even upper elementary students have an opportunity to do first-hand “Turning Point” photography.

Many neighborhoods have local landmarks. These include well-known and frequented informal meeting places, businesses, streets, schools, parks or roads that are undergoing proactive renovation or being repaired because of damages due to natural disasters, arson or accidental negligence (accidental fires, collapse of structures, etc.)

These accelerated projects, everyday observable changes (often with the work in progress unfolding before the local pedestrian’s sight), afford students who have hand-held or digital cameras, an opportunity to capture their own experienced turning points: the revitalization of a neighborhood home or park; the opening of a new business, recreation center, outdoor arts experience; a festival; a cultural celebration.

Since construction signs, New Management and grand opening signs for such “turning points” are often on display, students can plan and create/get their “before,”during” and “after” turning point mages. They can also interview persons involved on-site in each of these three stages of development.

Students should model their photos and reporting interviews on Daily News metro reporting style. They should also use the Daily News regional sections in print copy and eEditions to locate articles about their block, or sample articles/images to be used as models.

Students and their teachers can share these end products, as well as neighborhood student-on-site, filmed and written reports, at local community and senior centers, publicize these on local cable news shows and can even share

these with the Daily News’ NIE department for possible use on the NIE site. Some students may even consider futures as photographers and other media professionals with this project.

Learning Standards:

Mathematics, Science and Technology Standards — Standards 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, The Arts 2, 3 and 4, English Language Arts 1, 2, 3 and 4, Languages other than English 1 and 2, and Social Studies 1, 2, 3 and 4.

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oh, the standards performances and portfolio landmarks places, we’ll know!

Big Town photographs spanning New York City landmark history offer students a vast portal of potential multi-content grade, age, special need and talent projects.

These projects can be seamlessly integrated into ongoing high standards subject instruction and test sophistication training with the distinct advantage of making study alive, accessible and relevant to students. How better to motivate school classroom learning than through photos of easily visited NYC landmarks that so many New York City residents do not explore as thoroughly as tourists do!

1. NYC Landmarks – NYC Student Guide for Peers From Other States or Countries

While many New York City sightseeing guidebooks, with vibrant illustrations and well-researched texts, abound, few are compiled by students for their peers from upstate, other states or other countries.

Students can use the public places photographs as a starting point for developing online and print “student/kid for student/kid” friendly

tips for visiting public places. They can use the eEdition search feature to gather much accurate information about the public places; they can get data from Daily News Pix Archives, The News home site and printed materials as resources for their guide.

More importantly, students can revisit, or visit these public places for the first time, with an eye to identifying special aspects of them that will be enjoyed by their peers.

With their educator’s help, students can decide to focus on a single public place from the Big Town series. With the teacher’s and principal’s permission, guides authored by the students can be posted online on their school sites or shared with education staff/public outreach staff at the relevant venues. Teachers can share the guides (photocopied or as online docs/Web pages) with “distance learning” colleagues, “bringing” their classes to the public place via the attractive guide.

In addition, students can author grade, age and foreign language public place versions for younger peers within their own school or with affiliated schools. (If there are competent ELL students who can write in a language other than English, the guides can be made available in

LandmarksNYC Public Places to Preserve

“One look is worth a thousand words”–

— Used by Fred R. Barnard in Printer’s Ink trade journal, 1921, often represented as a distillation of a Chinese proverb

“A picture shows me at a glance what it takes dozens of pages of a book to expound.”

— ―Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons (1862))

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these languages as well.)

In whatever way that the “student/kid for student/kid” guide is used, the key outcome is that students’ public places guides get real feedback for their research from peers.

Students who have access to audio file capacity can also create PowerPoint guides for their public places, with music and spoken narration. ELL learners or foreign language speakers can provide foreign- language commentary, so that peer visitors who are not English language speakers can benefit from these by-students-for-students, NYC public places guides.

If students are involved in NYC landmark or NY state historical study, the guide can draw on The News’ eEdition and archives, NYC Landmarks Guides (e.g., Wiley and Sons, 2008), and American Memory archives to include a pictorial timeline for the selected landmarks.

2. Public Landmark Places/Private Lives- Oral Histories

New York City’s landmarks have affected the personal lives and experiences of many adult New York City residents, tourists and regular business visitors to our city. Have students select a particular Big Town public place photo as a start. Next, they will identify at least three other public place photos, using Daily News eEdition and Daily News archives as resources.

When they have collected at least three photos of the public place, students can develop a short oral history questionnaire/survey to recruit adults to share their memories and their experiences of this public place.

Questions might include:

n Have you ever visited this place?

n When did you first personally visit this place?

n How often do you pass it or definitely go to visit it?

n Why is this place so special to you?

n Have you shared this public place with anyone else— a friend or family member? When? Why?

n If you were showing someone around New York City, how would you explain the importance of this public place to him or her?

n If this public place does not “mean” much to you, what other public place in New York City is important to you? Explain why this public place has personal meaning for you.

These oral landmark histories can be recorded as audio files, to accompany a PowerPoint slide display/movie of the public place online, or posted on the classroom web site. If at least four-five of the individuals interviewed by students can appear in school on a given date, a rich forum with a backdrop of images, and perhaps ephemera/memorabilia of these public places can be shared with students and community.

Some of the landmarks selected may offer outreach sessions on their own sites and may be happy to feature or include these oral history presenters and their student historians as part of their own public programming.

Whether online, on-site at school or at the public places selected, this project integrates students reading, interviewing, presenting, editing and responding to photographs into a very “real” community service and interaction opportunity that validates skills in urban folklore context.

3. New York City Pictorial History Atlas – Student-for-Student Style

Historian Eric Homberger has compiled a visually captivating historical atlas of New York City history, spanning 400 years. This atlas (2005) uses photographs and graphics of specific places, to make its traditional, cartographic data come alive.

While this atlas is targeted at adult readers, students from upper elementary grades and higher can use it as an anchor model for

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creating their own mini “in style” of public places. This can be done on large poster boards, foam boards for a History Day display or expo, or configured as a lush scrapbook or a word document, with imported photographs and other public place images.

Whichever vehicle (technology-supported or individually hand-crafted and mounted) the students choose, the initially printed or online-featured public place photos are a key part of their NYC Pictorial History Atlas.

Their text can be conversational and appropriate for their peers.

Not only will students be involved in research for a target audience, they will be creating a document similar to those used as pivotal content, for key document-based social studies exam questions on standardized tests. What better way to hone these key test-taking skills, and perhaps inspire future research careers, than to create a peer audience research tool!

4. Red Grooms/New York Botanical Garden of Landmarks

n Arts/Composted Constructed NYC model.

Red Grooms (b.1937, American pop artist) built his reputation by creating small-scale sculpture models of New York City, with key landmarks highlighted, which were exhibited throughout the city. The New York Botanical Garden has established an annual tradition of using compost materials to expertly design and to blend New York City sites with children’s holiday trains into a December display that enthralls locals as well as visitors of all ages.

While the exquisite artistry, materials and skills employed to fashion these models on such an elaborate level are beyond the resources, curriculum and time allotments of most NYC educators, those with some special accesses and resources can pattern projects on Red Grooms’ models.

Those with artistically talented students (and in-house art educators), English- language learners and special-needs learners, can integrate small

wallet sized public place photos downloaded from the eEdition or photocopied from the print Big Town pages, onto a papier-maché or milk carton/takeout carton, public places NYC classroom or expo model, to complement NYC geographic study.

As a hands-on analog to other public places projects, this project immediately encourages spatial, kinesthetic, artistic and ELL learners to participate in public place study, by creating a product that also teaches problem-solving, teamwork, research and document interpretation skills.

5. Forgotten Places – Public Places Past lives

As they walk through our city, keenly observant students will readily identify signs, ads, inscriptions, logos and bits of unrenovated public space structures that alert the city stroller to the past existence of a closed down business; the use of the structure for another purpose or audience, or a former private place, now public.

Students who enjoy tracking down such “out in the open” indicators of public places past can work independently or in small groups to identify them. Just as the Big Town photographers “capture” public places with their cameras, students can photograph these “urban” public places past lives, clues. They can research the past uses of these spaces, using online, print and first person, neighborhood primary sources. Whatever their findings, this New York City “walkabout” alerts and sensitizes students to the rich information available within their daily range about our city’s evolving public place history.

6. Landmarks-to-be, Designated Nominees

What about these places?

As students follow the Big Town series, they will begin to identify public places that are important in their lives or, in the lives of their families, which have not yet been profiled. They may wish to use the model of the eEdition or print edition Big Town format to create their own public place model pages. They could submit

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these public places suggestions electronically, through their teachers, to the Daily News NIE department (nydailynews.com/NIE). Students might even want to include their own version of Public Places photographs as ongoing features in successive issues of their student newspaper.

7. Private Places/ Places That Matter

Some New York City places that “matter” in students lives are not “public” ones. They are “private” to the students, with personal meaning and use, significant to them and perhaps to those even unaware of their existence. Students can photograph these.

These photographs could then be accompanied by reflections — poetry, commentary, oral histories or published author quotes ― which serve as texts that sum up why these private places matter as much as do public ones. This can be compiled into a class publication or submitted to an ongoing City Lore project resource, Places Matter ― www.placematters.net. Whatever use is made of the photographs and texts provided by students for this project, it has helped them to identify and share places in NYC that matter to them. Photo reflection solidifies connected, proud and engaged citizenship.

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General References and New York City

Print Resources: Arcadia Publishing, www.arcadiapublishing.com

This company produces a vast Images of America photographic series that includes specific titles dedicated to five borough New York City neighborhoods (Bay Ridge, Coney Island, Ellis Island, Brooklyn Streetcars, New York City World’s Fair, Post Card History, the el, New York City Vaudeville, etc).

Burrows, Edwin G. and Mike Wallace. (1999). Gotham ― A History of New York City to 1898. New York: Oxford Press.

Ellis, Mark and Melissa Martin Ellis. (2008). The Everything Guide to Writing Graphic Novels. Avon, MA: Adams Media.

A great resource for students and teachers wanting to transform fiction, non-fiction and photographic documents into graphic narrative format. Excellent templates and simple explanations.

Grimes, Nikki and Bryan Collier. (2008). Barack Obama ― Son of Promise ― Child of Hope. New York: Simon and Schuster.

This picture biography of Barack Obama is very relevant for the Landmark prime movers activities, since its illustrator uses photographs as a resource for all of his picture biographies and as sources for illustrations

Harness, Cheryl. (2008). Abe Lincoln Goes to Washington. Washington, DC

National Geographic. This work has superb question formats that can be used for effective intensive document study of Big Town content and as models for student products/questions using Big Town images.

Homberger, Eric. (2005). The Historical Atlas of New York City ― A Visual Celebration of 400 Years of New York City History. Chicago: Triumph Books.

Reaven, Marci & Steve Zeitlin. (2007). Hidden New York ― A Guide to Places that Matter. New

Brunswick, NJ: Rivergate Books

Sciezka, Jon. (2008). Knucklehead ― Tall Tales and Mostly True Tales About Growing Up Scieska. New York: Viking

This biography deftly combines photographs of the well-known author in his youth with text for a great teen picture biography read and anchor model format.

Solis, Julia. (2005). New York Underground ― The Anatomy of a City. New York: Rutledge

Walsh, Kevin. (2006). Forgotten New York: Views of a Lost Metropolis. New York: Harper Collins

Wood, Nick. (2003). 360° New York. New York: Abrams. This photography book includes key New York City photographs which place their viewer in the center of the image.

Web Resources:

American Memory Archives http://memory.loc.gov

Forgotten New York www.forgotten-ny.com

nydailynews.com/nie ― For teachers to subscribe to electronic editions of the Daily News (exact replicas of print editions) for their students – no cost to students and teacher ― available Sun.-Fri., 24 hours per day. Free access to one year of archives.

New York Daily News Pix – Photo archive of the New York Daily News www.dailynewspix.com

New York Roads www.newyorkroads.com

Streetlife Notes www.streetlights.tripod.com

More NYC info:

Contact: New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, 1 Centre St., NY, NY 10007 ― 1-212-669-7700

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For additional information on Daily News

Newspaper in Education (NIE) programs,

please call (212) 210-2924

Fax: (212) 681-3398

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COPYRIGHT © 2009 ALL RIGHTS RESERVEDNo part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any fom or by any means without written permission from the New York Daily News NIE department.Permission is given only to the individual classroom teacher to reproduce any student activity pages for classroom use only. Reproduction of these materials for other publication purposes or distribution is prohibited.