Teaching activity (for a theoretical class), contributed by Kasi

Students should start by finding (on Flickr) or scanning photos of some location that has had some meaning for them in the past (this could be interpreted as broadly as possible to include the house they grew up in, a place they visited once but never forgot, or some place they always dreamed of seeing in person). Then, they could take or find digital photos/video of where they are now--their college campus.

Students should then reflect on the photos in writing, by responding to the following prompt: look carefully at images of places that have been meaningful to you at some point in the past, then compare and contrast those to images of campus or your present surroundings. How does the architecture differ? How are the buildings arranged in relationship to one another? How are the lives of people evident? What values or ways of life are these images witness to, and what details support your assumptions? What institutions are evidently at work?

The reflective writing could lead to the development of a more multimodal project, incorporating the collected photos, plus:

1. Oral history (interviewing someone from each location who has lived or worked in that place for an extended period of time); or

2. A video collage of photos, plus music and/or writing that is distinct to each place (this could work especially well in the Twin Cities, where there are plenty of local writers and musicians).

The class videos could be collected, along with the writing, on a communal Web space. Especially in a classroom where students have diverse backgrounds and experiences, I think that this collection could form a remarkable group portrait.