Part of Lesson Plan: Story, Audience, Message and Style (Intro)

Activity Overview / Details

At this point in the lesson students should feel comfortable with the notion of Story, Audience, Message and Style.

Have students pair up and find 3 images from Life magazine (online link below).

Each student then writes (without showing the other his/her partner) the SAMS to the photo they have selected. (on a new sheet of paper)

Once each student is done with their own personal thoughts on the photo, have students share what they determined to be the SAMS.  Do this for all three images.

Discuss with the pairs to see if their individual SAMS are similar or different, do this as a whole group, and allow the students to show off the images they selected and have them explain their thoughts on the image. 

This is a great moment to reemphasize the notion that different people with different life experiences will look differently at similar photos; however that often times great photos will have SAMS that are easily identified.