This morning I set myself a challenge to explore the word ‘corners’ with photography. Just for fun. Then, phone/camera in hand, I looked for nooks, hidden things and unexpected angles.
This process is an exact emulation of fun Friday challenges I commonly set for students. Regardless of medium, a word can push them into new directions and force them to explore around new corners. Sometimes linked to the curriculum strategically (eg. Scale, light, shadow, texture etc) and sometimes more abstract (alone, weather, love, loss, above, below etc) – the results are always fun, often daring and always a serious anchor point for extending, confirming and refining a student’s direction.
Sometimes setting tight parameters is a good prompt for discovery learning and sometimes something open like a single word can be the only prompt needed to make something new and compelling.
Here is my little photo essay.
Prompt: corners
Restriction (self imposed): black and white
Medium: Hypocam, afterlight, Adobe lightroom, samsung s10e.
Timeframe: 60 minutes
What do you think? Could you use a one word concept as inspiration for a discovery lesson?
Trust me, it can be so much fun.
the teaching tree 