• Warm-up: Review photo-essay of classroom scavenger hunt from lesson 1. How well did we describe our classroom? (10)

• Project the page spreads from the book This Equals That. Begin by asking your students to make observations about each photograph, backing up the observations with visual evidence. Ask, “What do you see in this photograph? What makes you say that?” Move through the sequence, asking, “How is this photograph related to the one next to it?” Introduce photo vocabulary or grab words that the students use: form (3-D), line, shape (2-D), texture, subject, color, focus, background/foreground/mid-ground, point of view, depth of field, time, pattern, composition, contrast, etc. NOTE: Your goal is to discover the vocabulary words with the students. If a student says, “There are lots of bumps in the picture,” you could say, “Yes, that’s called texture!” This is more interesting for students and makes the vocabulary stick better than giving them a list of terms. Move quickly and ask students to shout out the words as they grasp the game. You should try to reach the dice cup/play slides spread before concluding. Capture vocabulary words on the board or flip chart to review later. (20)

• Have groups of four play Visual Dominoes with premade cards. Find an element in one of the photographs (for example, the color red). Place it next to another photograph that shares that element. Find a different element in the second photograph, like a curvy line. Place a photograph that also has a curvy line in it next to that one. Continue, trying to find harder elements like composition or focus—color and subject are usually the easiest to notice. (15)

• Review how to use and take care of cameras. (5)

• Photo exercise: Working in pairs and using the vocabulary list in the workbook for reference, students embark on a photo scavenger hunt to discover and make pictures of form, line, shape, texture, pattern, etc. (20) Review, share, and close. (5).

Staff Follow-Up: Download the images from the cameras and select student photos that reflect vocabulary words. Create a slide show, ideally organized by pairs of images as in This Equals That.

Going Further: Note that certain page spreads invite deeper investigation and conversation. For instance, middle school students frequently grasp that the images of the dice cup and the pair of slides share a reference to action and movement not illustrated in either picture, but that are alluded to when the pictures are placed side by side: the die roll out of the cup/children slide down the slide. This spread can function as the first lesson within the curriculum about how the CONTEXT in which we find an image impacts our interpretation of that picture. Another example: the images of the fisherman and the fish stall together suggest cause and effect. Dig deeper with older students to explore more of these associative and conceptual meanings.

Materials Needed: Computer, digital projector, Visual Dominoes, digital cameras, vocabulary activity in the workbook, and This Equals That PDF. Masterwork: Jason Fulford and Tamara Shopsin, This Equals That (Aperture, 2014)

Students will: • Know: Basic visual/photographic

vocabulary. • Understand: Photographic images have

distinct form; the camera is a tool for seeing.

• Do: Be able to identify and isolate key vocabulary words within images and use the camera to illustrate them.

Lesson Plan: (1 hr, 15 min) Lesson 2 FORM: This Equals That