Not only is this a great resource but I also engaged by the comments it created. I must admit I was very moved when hearing about kids who are homeless and others who parents may be deployed etc. Having taught through troubled times in Northern Ireland it shows how considerate we must be of our audience. Nevertheless, with teacher discretion, this is indeed a great project.

Hi Tim,

I can understand your reluctance to present the lesson because of your proximity to the base. It was extremely difficult for me to look at the photos as my son was deployed immediately after 9/11 and for six weeks I had no idea where he was. If something had happened to him, I would have left everything as it was so that I could remember him.

Let me know how it goes if you decide to use the slideshow.

I want so bad to use this material however living next door to Dam Neck Naval Base, NAS Oceana and having MANY students who's parents are forward deployed I worry it may be too much. I am going to save the PDF file reflect on the assignment ask other teachers in the area what they think. I do want to THANK you for such a great activity.

Very thought provoking. I too have students that would feel they could not reveal their private space, whether it be their bedroom or just a place they sleep. I like the idea of letting them find their own special place and photograph it. Then allow them to use the techniques mentioned in the lesson to enhance their photos.

Thanks for the lesson- what a lesson!

well done !

Kris - We totally support you! :)

Very Creative!!!!!

Very Neat!

A wonderfully profound and meaningful project. Thanks, Kris.

Masterful and primed for the 21st century learner.

Wow! This is powerful. It really puts a "face" on the young men and women we lost. It hits home, many were the same age as my children are now.

Thank you for sharing this lesson.

Wow! This is powerful. It really puts a "face" on the young men and women we lost. It hits home, many were the same age as my children are now.

Thank you for sharing this lesson.

So impressed by the content and connections between PA and ISTE standards. Job well done with innovation plus!!

Judy,

I have admired your lessons on the exchange for quite a while and have used a few with my students, so I am honored that you are going to use my lesson with your students.

very insightful

Very powerful. I am going to start with the exercise about the 19 rooms. I have a lot of students who are foster children - many do not have bedrooms, so I am going to have to think a bit about it. I like the idea of "their special place". I might have my yearbook students do a page as an end-of-year assignment. Thank you for sharing.

@Teri- I'm familiar with that project :)

@Kris- I think that sounds great! I'll talk to our photo teachers about working on it.

@Therese & Kris- Interesting points! Perhaps instead of taking pictures of their rooms in a way that 'reveals' - they could take pictures of their rooms in ways that conceals... that could be an interesting conceptual project too... Maybe give the student the option to do it either way?

Hi Therese,

I agree with you about it being problematic for some students. Their grade would never depend on following the criteria exactly as shown in this lesson. I have students who are intensely private and opted out of the assignment for that reason. The focus would change depending on the type of the students in the class. Actually, I have done the project without asking them to photograph their room, but merely to reflect on the bedrooms.

Overall, I like this project. However, this type of a project can be problematic not only for "displaced" children, but also for a students who are INTENSELY private. I have worked with a number of students who struggled to write or communicate anything about themselves to the point they were unable to even begin certain assignments and risked failing classes despite being proficient communicators. I would suggest making the focus of this project a special place--any special place whether it is special to the student, to someone he knows, or to the public in general. The student's choice of special place says as much about the student as a direct look into his or her life!

Wow! Powerful and relevant. What an inspiring way to bring a real-life story into classrooms.

Can't wait to use this with my photography students. Many of them are in JROTC and have many friends who have graduated, gone on to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some who have passed. It will engage them on so many levels. Thanks!

I thought this was a great lesson- I like the idea of looking into someone else's life and it helps the students to have empathy.

David, just like the book for Paint the World With Light!

http://carrotrevolution.com/lightpainting/

David, I still want to post this lesson to ArtEd 2.0 as a collaborative project. Maybe for the first of the year?

Kris, I told you this in person, but I just love this idea- and I think it would make a great collection of student work from around the world... maybe compiled in some kind of book....

Absolutely BEAUTIFUL!

Kris,

As a mother, my heart aches looking at Ashley Gilbertson's photos. The room of Nils Thompson (whose family, it appears, lives in Confluence, Pennsylvania) is the one that hit me in the deepest way. His bed was partially made - you could almost see him half-making his bed the day he left - and left that way. I know that Confluence is in the southeast part of the state - but what Gilbertson said on the website, that he learned that families want to talk about their kids - if the project affects the students in the same way, perhaps his parents might be invited to speak to your classes about him and about how they felt when Gilbertson contacted them to do the portrait of his room.

Bringing this project into your classroom, I hope, brings your students into the world of others and in doing so can internalize an external reality that is going on in the wider world but addressed in generalities and not usually addressed to the individuals themselves. And the creative process and thoughts provoked in creating a 'time capsule' for themselves in the process of creating their own work that they can look back on someday.

I also think that this is a great way of using Photoshop in a personal way rather than beginning with an abstract concept. Would love to see a 'finished project' website with the results of their work.

Kris,

As you know, I did this lesson with my students as well - thanks for the idea. The students commented on the "ordinariness" of the shots of the bedrooms and the photos. When they first viewed the photos (I just started the slide show to start a conversation), they thought the soldiers were returning to their home after their tour of duty was over. When they looked (and read further), they realized not only weren't the soldiers returning, their families had left the soldiers bedrooms the same as the room was the day they left.

My students were very moved by the "Shrines" represented in the bedrooms of fallen service men and women. The students did feel that even though their own bedrooms reflect their personalities and are a window into their inner selves, they felt that their bedrooms were "not as important" as those of the fallen soldiers.

I had the students take a series of photos to create a photomerge - needless to say, the action in Photoshop only worked when their rooms were square or close to sqiare. Those students with very rectangular rooms, had to manually merge their photos to create a panorama of their room-that was considerably more work, technically.

I will probably do this lesson again - it is very powerful!

Thanks so much for the idea and asking me to share with my students.

Kris Troxell

Thank you for sharing, Kris! VERY powerful. I'm thinking of bringing this into my own classroom now. I feel such a strong empathetic connection to the work, because the people memorialized would all be about my age, had they survived. I hope that the closeness in age to my students (at the times of their deaths) will draw out a similar empathetic response in them.

Bravo!

I am happy that so many of you are using the photographs that Ashley Gilbertson took and tweaking it to fit the students you teach. I must tell you that I teach in a very rural school district in Northwest Pennsylvania where students have very little in the way of comfort. Katie's room above, is the one I chose to post with this lesson plan but some of the others are poignant reflections of what the students face when they leave school at the end of the day. For example, Kyle's room has plastic on all the windows not to keep the cold out but because he broke them in anger.

Teri - the same thing happened with the group of kids I teach. I could sense that a few of my students didn't have a space they call their own. I allowed all of my kids to choose to capture a space that makes them comfortable - it could be a basement where they hang out, a park that they like to be - any place or space where they feel free to be themselves. I then had all of them submit them anonymously and we tried to match the images to the personalities. It is sobering to think what many of our kids face on a daily basis, but it does demonstrate the resiliance of the human spirit that they're determined to succeed.

Just something Ihave noticed with a few students. Some of them are not photographing their rooms because they have been displaced and don't have a room. Living at a relative's house and sleeping on the couch, sleeping on an air matresss on the floor--it is the state of the economy right now. So I have to carefully sugggest perhaps taking a picture of where the dog sleeps or where they keep their belongings. I feel for them.

Greetings! This lesson is inspiring and innovative. Well done! It would be interesting to add a small writing component to it. For example, upon viewing Gilbertson’s photos, students can choose one and create a journal entry or letter from the soldier’s perspective. Students can then share their creative responses with the class or in small groups based on the photo selected. This may prove to add a layer of creative aesthetic while incorporating a writing standard.

i love this class and this project lol

BTW my room is a mess( thats my room up there)

Thanks so much Kris. I just showed my photo students the site today and asked them to write about the photographs. Then we talked aobut their own rooms and how they would photograph them. Ashley's work is very powerful and many discussions were started about the war, families, the types of energy we use, etc.

Great idea Kris...would love to see the English department in your school involved with some Ekphrasis exercises! The writing that may result would be a great collaborative. Invite them after your student's works are displayed...and see what happens : )

It would be interesting to see a theater piece that mirrors the power of this art lesson, one that reflects the conversations that might have taken place when the photographer sat down to talk with the families. Your lesson design really caught my attention! Thanks!

Very creative.

Inspiring and thought-provoking.

Wow, I love this idea. I would absolutely do this project with a Photography or Computer Graphics class. Not only does it incorporate literacy, but it really makes the kids reflect on something personal.

Very challenging and thought provoking!

Kris- Your lesson plans always really relate to the students and this one especially speaks to teens. It's great!

Thank you to all for your comments. I would like to especially thank Ashley Gilbertson for his powerful photographs that inspired this lesson.

Powerful integration of photographic art and current events. My guess is that that this exquisite lesson resonates in students' minds better than any social studies lecture about an era dominated by simultaneous wars.

Kris,

In this me, me me generation, this lesson stirs those empathy sentiments in the students.

Kris,

I love how you are using identity as a theme in your work!

Kris, Great job as always. Your ideas are always innovative.

This is a great assignment for high school students as they are ready to think of themselves as adults. It also connects the personal to what is happening on the world stage as well.

Kris,

I can see students loving this assignment! It is very personal and students of high school age respond to this. It also speaks to empathy, a trait that we hope all students develop. Well done!

Kris - this is a sobering assignment and topic, but it speaks to so many of the thought processes we need our kids to understand. Thanks for sharing this wonderful work with us!