v.

visual portraits:

"It is the responsibility of teachers to ensure that students use technology to serve the story and not the other way around."

~Jason Ohler~

"Visual portraits” came about while imagining a concept for digital storytelling. Jason Ohler, author of Digital Storytelling in the Classroom: New Media Pathways to Literacy, Learning, and Creativity (2008), acknowledges that "digital storytelling" is a difficult term to define because of the vagueness of combining the already vague terms of "digital" and "storytelling." However, Ohler describes "digital storytelling" (DST) as an activity that "uses personal digital technology to combine a number of media into a coherent narrative" (15). Moreover, Ohler qualifies his description of digital storytelling by adding that "digital stories in education are typically driven by an academic goal, use low-end technology that is commonly available to students, and usually are in the form of short (two-to four-minute) quasi movies that an audience watches via computer or other digital means" (15-16). A teacher sample of a finished digital storytelling project, based in Ohler’s instruction, can be accessed here).

Originally, I conceived of shooting the below scenes with a camcorder and reciting the epitaphs to create a legitimate digital story. I saw myself entering from stage left, reading the lines like a bard and exiting stage right. However, after storyboarding each of the statues and matching the epitaphs, with the intention to return to the site of the story's setting, I realized the still-images more effectively enacted a tombstone-like effect. Since epitaphs are engraved on tombstones I felt like the story must be told with still images. I was convinced the story could not be told any other way, such as by means of digital storytelling. The technology, in this case, was "to serve the story and not the other way around" (Ohler 6). On that day, a "visual portrait" was born. I applied Ohler's thinking of digital storytelling with a more conventional storytelling method of the photo-essay to create the poem presented below.

Visual portraits might be used synonymously with the term "digital photo-essay," for a digital photo-essay can become a visual portrait. Yet visual portraits could be constructed by non-digital means. Ink illustrations and various forms of collages can be used instead of a digital camera, but the below story and poem was indeed designed with a digital camera. Consequently, Epitaphs of a Sculpture Park can be literally considered a "story" or narrative told "digitally."

Digital cameras are effective tools for teachers to use with their students because they sidestep the tedious work of having to scan images on a scanner to upload them to a machine. Most digital cameras are now equipped with a USB cable that allows images to be imported quickly and effectively onto nearly any personal computer. Also, many students own cell phones with built in cameras that could be successfully transformed into a learning tool.

The idea of visual portraits aims to be received and used as an innovative vehicle for creative juxtaposition. For instance, what if students could use photos cut out from travel magazines and National Geographic or other popular magazines to inspire them to write creative stories, such as one using fan fiction and/or role-play? Pictures, indeed, could become a springboard for students to write 1,000 words! Students might be given a series of five pictures (or assigned to take their own pictures) and then prompted to write a story, a poem, or a series of epitaphs that correlate to the images (see below).

The below "visual portrait" or digital photo-essay was a poem put to still images shot at Benson Sculpture Garden in Loveland, Colorado. The combination of alphabetic poetry and pedagogy as well as photographic images demonstrates a new literacies activity that can be effectively used in a middle school or high school classroom. Activities, such as the one above of cutting photos out of a magazine or the one below of taking pictures and combining them with poetry, teach twenty-first century composition to students using twenty-first century digital and multimodal rhetorical skills.

Epitaphs of a Sculpture Park

A Visual Portrait

Sculpture of a Bard with a Mirror

Here stands a bard

Who said the world is a stage

Alone he stands

Forever in his own gaze

(Sculpture: "The Actor," Dee Clements)

Sculpture of Children in a Circle

Here play the children

They dance around and sing

They reach out their hands

For you to join the ring

(Sculpture: "Circle of Peace," Gary Price)

III

Sculpture of Faithful Buffalo

Here traverses a buffalo

Caught between sky and open field

Even when family disappears

Faithful buffalo does not yield

(Sculpture: "Open Space," George Manus)

Sculpture of Wolves and Scent of Fear

Here roam wild wolves

They keep in tight pack

Smelling subtle fear

There's no turning back

(Sculpture: "Survival," Jeff Oens)

Sculpture of Big Snake

Here slithers a big snake

Who loves to tie the tongue

Only when you confess

Can his spell be undone

(Sculpture: "Sophie," Tony Hochstetler)

Sculpture of a Woman Praying

Here prays a woman

She searches for a Truth within

If you sit with her

She will show you where to begin

(Sculpture: "Mujer Del Lago," Tom Ware)

VII

Sculpture Jazz

Hear the jazz

Fill the space

One two three

Treble bass

(Sculpture: "Jazz," Gary Alsum)

VIII

Sculpture of Shepherd Boy

Here muses a shepherd

In the field with his flock

He works beside the sun

Never looks at his clock

(Sculpture: "Shepherd Boy," Judy Black)

Sculpture of a Navajo

Here endures a Navajo

He stands facing the West

Patiently awaits amends

In aftermath of conquest

(Sculpture: "Navajo," Martha Pettigrew)

Sculpture of a Gallant Mare

Here straddles a gallant mare

She crosses her own actions

Looking down at her four hooves

To see if they're the right ones

(Sculpture: "Career Moves," Lisa Gordon)

Sculpture of the Ravens

Here perch seven ravens

Hungry for nourishment

They pray and meditate

To receive fulfillment

(Sculpture: "Raven Series," Jim Eppler)

XII

Sculpture of Man on a Bench

Here sits a friend

He said that he would watch

A visual portrait

On a laptop

(Sculpture: "Resting on a Rough Sawn Bench," Robert McDermott)

Epilogue

Here mimics Adam Mackie

A student, a teacher

A poet, an author

Wounded by letters