Actively Engaging Middle Level Students with Photo Journals

Abstract

A photo journal project engages reluctant learners. Making a photo journal in class has been awesome! I often find school to be the most boring place on the planet, like uber-boring. Yea[sic], I admit that I usually sit in classes doodling or staring at my watch. Not this time! This project was actually meaningful and fun! Doing this project made me want to come to school. I enjoyed more about my peers and myself. I also appreciated the opportunity to get creative and use technology. Seriously, this has been an awesome experience. I already started making another photo journal at home ... this journal is about the environment and the photo journal I made in class has inspired some of my friends to make their own. -Cynthia, 11-year-old gifted student I never fit [in] at school. Students talk smack about me. Teachers don't seem [to] really care. Making [a] photo journal has been an amazing [experience]. This [was] fun and exciting! This project transformed [my] relationship[s]. I talk more [to] my classmates now, and they talk [more] to me. This project show[ed] me that I have [a] teacher who cares about me and want[s] me to learn. She value[s] my voice. ... This project has been the best thing I [have] ever done in school. -Armando, 12-year-old English language learner After we finished making our photo books in language arts, I's wishing we could make photo journals in all our classes at school, for real. This was interesting. This was real. Why don't more teachers have us do things like this project instead of them boring worksheets or, ugh, that stupid testing prep whatever? So sick of that junk! Making a photo journal is cool. I's proud of my journal. I's real-real proud of what I made. This be the first assignment that didn't end up in the trash. I brought it back from school and shared it with my ma. She cried. ... Now I be showing it to everyone I know. ... I always thought I's suck at writing, but now I think, I think I's wanna be a writer when I'm grown. Maybe a photographer too. -Tyronne, 13-year-old student Cynthia, Armando, and Tyronne (all names are pseudonyms) were reluctant young adolescent learners; or at least they appeared to be reluctant learners until a middle level language arts teacher implemented a photo journal project in their class. This article reports findings from a qualitative study of the implementation of a photo journal project and demonstrates how photo journals motivated and engaged middle level students in learning, particularly reluctant learners from traditionally marginalized social groups. It also shows how a teacher built community in her classroom by implementing this strategy. Reluctant learners A reluctant learner lacks motivation to learn or appears disengaged academically, and he or she may often display silence, indolence, or inappropriate behavior (Crozier, 2009; Stipek, 2002). Reluctance in can come from a variety of sources and may only apply to one subject area, teacher, topic, or task or, as in the cases of Cynthia, Armando, and Tyronne, may apply to schooling in general. Students from traditionally marginalized groups (e.g., racial minorities, English language learners) often experience a disconnect between their personal experiences and the curriculum and instructional methods in traditional public schools (Gay, 2000; Kozol, 2005; Spring, 2006; Tyack, 2005); and their responses to these disconnects are often identified as reluctance toward learning. Although the causes, manifestations, and implications of reluctance toward may vary, teachers must find ways to motivate and engage reluctant learners and provide them challenging, exploratory, integrative, and relevant curriculum, and engage them in active, purposeful learning through multiple and teaching approaches (National Middle School Association [NMSA], 2010, pp. 16, 17, 22). Furthermore, teachers must create meaningful and stimulating environments in which students are actively involved in the process (NMSA, 2010; Stipek, 2002). …