Modern Event
Hurricane Katrina
current economic crisis
conflict minerals
Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District
CIA’s use of water boarding under the Bush
administration
Casey Anthony trial
genocide in Darfur
Arizona’s 2011 ban on Mexican American Studies
War in Iraq
Rod Blagojevich scandal
Race riots from 2006-2010 in California and NY
Derrion Albert murder in Chicago
Anti-gay hate crimes:
Rashawn Brazell 2005
Dwan Prince 2005
Amancio Corrales 2005
St. John’s Reformed United Church of Christ arson
Jena Six, 2006
Haditha Massacre 2005
Earth Liberation Front (ELF)
9/11 attack on the World Trade Center
2005 oil crisis
Protests in Egypt
Parallel Historical Event
Johnstown Flood of 1889
Great Depression in 1930s
blood diamonds in Africa in the early 1990s
Scopes Trial (Scopes Monkey Trial) of 1925
Spanish Inquisition
Japan during WWII
Lizzie Borden trial
Nazis in Germany
destruction of Native Americans
other forms of genocide in history
Mexican American War
Imperialism
Vietnam War
Gray Wolves of 1895 or other historical Chicago
political scandals
1990 Inglewood California Riot
1991 Crown Heights riot
1992 Los Angeles Riot
Robert “Yummy” Sandifer murder in Chicago in
1994
Matthew Shepard 1998
Brandon Teena 1993
Scottsboro Boys Trial 1931
My Lai Massacre 1968
Weather Underground 1960s
Pearl Harbor 1941
Salad Oil Scandal 1963
1973 oil crisis
1979 Energy Crisis
Berlin 1989
AP English Language and Composition
Final Project: Photo Essay
COMPOSING A PHOTO ESSAY
Multimedia genres like photo essays and Web pages are creating new kinds of narratives. You will, in this
assignment, create a photo essay designed to show an audience how an event in history recycled itself in the modern
world. In The Crucible, Arthur Miller saw that the hypocrisy and mass hysteria developing in his own time paralleled a
similar event hundreds of years before. He chose to use the historical event as a vehicle to comment on current events.
Much like Miller, you will choose a historical event that has a parallel modern event that has occurred within the past
decade. Inform your essay with research conducted using the Internet. Select at least 10-12 images that allow you to
convey important information about your topic, and then incorporate those images into your presentation and add
captions and explanations that allow you to tell a story about your topic.
HOW DO I CHOOSE A TOPIC?
As you consider some element of contemporary culture, you should choose a topic that interests you. IF YOU
AREN’T INTERESTED IN WHAT YOU WRITE, NO ONE ELSE WILL BE. There is an attached list of ideas, but those are
merely suggestions. Find something that matters to you.
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SAY ABOUT YOUR TOPIC?
Because the purpose of your photo essay is to provide connections between the modern and historical worlds,
you are searching for points of commonality. Will you focus on the role of the government in your topics? Will you
focus on the atrocity and suffering that occurred in your topics? Will you focus on public response to your topics? Will
you focus on the tyrants, the victims, or both? To begin, you must gravitate toward a topic and then focus your thinking
into a research question. For instance, you might ask "What role did poverty play in the lack of aid given to the victims
of both Hurricane Katrina and the Johnstown Flood of 1889?” or “How does American consumption of conflict minerals
currently and blood diamonds in the early 1990s perpetuate a cycle of oppression in 3rd world countries?”
WHAT DO YOU NEED TO KNOW?
Next, conduct more extensive Internet research. Conduct keyword searches on the Net. Be sure to let your research
question guide you so that you can focus your keyword searches to locate relevant materials. Evaluate the sources you
discover. Keep track of all web pages and articles you find that inform you about your topic, as you will need them for
your annotated bibliography.
HOW WILL YOU DO IT?
Because its components combine elements of different media, you may find that your composing process for this
project is more complicated than for a traditional essay. Here are some tips to get you started.
1. Begin by doing a general Internet search of several of the topics on the final page of this document (at this point,
Wikipedia is ok).
2. Once you have selected a topic that interests you, begin doing more advanced Internet searches (at this point,
Wikipedia is NOT ok).
3. Locate images that will allow you to inform readers about your topic and your research. Images should not be
selected randomly. Rather, each image should allow you to make points about your topic. Select at least 10-12
images for the project.
4. Compose a project that has an opening page, essay pages for each of the images, a page for a conclusion, and a
page for the annotated bibliography. You may create a Power Point, or get more creative with Prezi at
prezi.com, or create a blog page using weebly.com.
5. Develop an essay page for each image. The page should have three components:
a. The image. Think about the order in which you arrange the images in your essay. Be sure to crop or size
the images for maximum effect.
b. A caption. Compose a caption of not more than one sentence that emphasizes the key concerns of the
image and situates the image within the structure of the essay.
c. An explanation. Compose several sentences explaining the significance of the image. Your explanation
might discuss aspects of the image in more detail. It should also integrate your research information
whenever possible. The explanation should make your topic meaningful to readers.
6. Compose an introduction and a conclusion that formally connects the themes of your two time periods.
7. Create an annotated bibliography:
A bibliography is a list of sources (books, journals, websites, periodicals, etc.) one has used for
researching a topic. An annotation is a summary and/or evaluation. Therefore, an annotated
bibliography includes a summary and/or evaluation of each of the sources.
First, you put in the normal bibliographical information you would for any works cited page (see
easybib.com for help). Then, after each entry, you write a paragraph of annotation that includes the
following:
a. a summary: What are the main arguments? What is the point of this article? What topics are
covered? If someone asked what this article/book is about, what would you say?
b. an evaluation: Is it a useful source? How does it compare with other sources in your bibliography? Is
the information reliable? Is this source biased or objective? What is the goal of this source?
c. a reflection: Once you've summarized and assessed a source, you need to ask how it fits into your
research. Was this source helpful to you? How does it help you shape your argument? How can you
use this source in your research project? Has it changed how you think about your topic?