This curriculum is intended to provide students and teachers with the tools to analyze photography. Each lesson is easily adaptable to enhance learning on any theme, topic, or historical period that is expressed by, or documented in, photographs. The lessons in this curriculum are intended to be used sequentially.

View photographs created by Los Angeles students with your class, either in preparation for teaching this unit or to inspire them to create their own photographs and artist's statements.

Lessons 1–3 of 3

Exploring Photographs, Lesson 1—Methods of Visual Analysis
Grades/Level: Middle School (6–8), High School (9–12)
Subjects: Visual Arts, English—Language Arts, History—Social Science
Lesson Overview: Students will learn the basic tools for analyzing images using description, reflection, and formal analysis.

Exploring Photographs, Lesson 2—A Closer Look: Analysis in the Museum
Grades/Level: Middle School (6–8), High School (9–12)
Subjects: Visual Arts, English—Language Arts, History—Social Science
Lesson Overview: Building on the strategies learned in the lesson 1, students will examine works of art in a museum setting.

Exploring Photographs, Lesson 3—Writing the Artist's Statement
Grades/Level: Middle School (6–8), High School (9–12)
Subjects: Visual Arts, English—Language Arts, History—Social Science
Lesson Overview: Students will read an artist's statement by Dorothea Lange and write an artist's statement based on their own photographs.

Lessons 1–3 of 3