Historical Context & Contemporary Views: Iconic Photographs—Then and Now
This handout compares the historical contexts and intents of iconic photographs in Regarding Susan Sontag to their modern interpretations.
PHOTOGRAPHY LESSON 3: HANDOUT 3/4
1—2 class periods (45-90 min)
VIDEOS:
On Photography Video and Transcript
HANDOUTS:
Handout 3/4
Handout 2 (as needed)
Unit Research (as needed)
TEACHING PLAN:
- Art and Culture
Medium > Visual Arts
Subject Matter > Art History
- History and Social Studies
Place > The Americas
Place > Asia
Place > Europe
U.S. History
U.S. > Civil War
U.S. > The Great Depression and WWII
Themes > Exploration and Discovery
Themes > Civil Rights
Themes > Culture
Themes > War and Foreign Policy
World > The Modern World
- Literature and Language Arts
Genre > Essay
Place > Modern World
- Analysis
- Compare and contrast
- Critical analysis
- Critical thinking
- Cultural analysis
- Discussion
- Evaluating arguments
- Gathering, classifying and interpreting written and visual information
- Historical analysis
- Internet skills
- Interpretation
- Media analysis
- Making inferences and drawing conclusions
- Online research
- Research
- Summarizing
- Synthesis
- Textual analysis
- Using archival documents
- Using primary sources
- Using secondary sources
- Visual analysis
- Visual art analysis
- ELA Reading: 1, 7
- ELA Writing: 7, 9
- ELA Speaking & Listening: 1-2
- HSS Reading: 1-3, 6-10
- HSS Writing: 7, 9
CONTINUE THIS LESSON
Complete the lesson with one of our Student Activity Options
- Assign one or more essays from Sontag’s On Photography or a section of Regarding the Pain of Others in advance.
- Allow additional time for research and reflection, encouraging students to deepen their study with additional sources or research multiple photographs and compare their histories.
- Research and concluding questions may also be assigned as short essays or response papers.