Literacy Through Photography®
The FotoFest Writing & Photography Project
FotoFest's Pre-collegiate Education Program

Literacy Through Photography (LTP)
Literacy Through Photography (LTP) is the year-round educational component of FotoFest International that uses photography to improve students' writing abilities, cognitive thinking, and classroom communication skills. LTP provides teachers with a 27-lesson project-based writing and photography curriculum in addition to comprehensive program training, classroom support, and teaching resources. Currently, LTP is in 44 schools, serving more than 81 teachers and 2,000 students. With program support from school administrators, teachers, and education organizations, LTP provides quality programming that is aligned with Texas state-mandated curriculum requirements for students in third to 12th grades.

FOTOFEST 2004 BIENNIAL PROGRAMMING
LITERACY THROUGH PHOTOGRAPHY AND WATER

Just A Drop Water Curriculum
Four Activity-Based Lessons for Grades 5 to 8
FotoFest developed the Just a Drop water curriculum for the 2004 Biennial as part of its Literacy Through Photography (LTP) program to teach elementary and middle school students about water issues and water conservation. In fall 2003, the four-lesson Just a Drop water curriculum was distributed to more than 100 classrooms in Houston/Harris County and Galveston public schools. Through factual information about water, maps, photographic images, experiments, creative writing exercises, and photography assignments, students were introduced to new perspectives on personal, regional, and global water issues.

The Just a Drop water curriculum was written by marine biologist and artist Karla Klay and environmental scientist Tina Proctor, co-directors of The Artist Boat, Galveston, TX. It includes an informative introduction, 4 lessons, glossary, resources, references, images on CD, and TAKS alignment sheet for grades five through eight. Lessons can be adapted for lower and higher grade levels.

To receive a copy of the Just A Drop water curriculum, please contact Mary Doyle Glover at ltp@fotofest.org or phone 713-223-5522 ext 11.

FotoFence 2004
An exhibition of 250 collage posters of student writing and photographs created from the Literacy Through Photography Curriculum and the Just a Drop Curriculum will be on display at the Houston Astros Minute Maid Park Union Station Lobby at 501 Crawford, May 11 though the 16, 2004. Lobby Hours: Monday-Friday 8:30a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The exhibition is free and open to the public.

School Tours of FotoFest Biennial Exhibitions
FotoFest provided free guided and self-guided school tours of FotoFest exhibitions during the 2004 Biennial. More than one thousand students from twenty-five Houston area elementary, middle and high schools participated. In addition, students at Houston School for the Performing and Visual Arts, Davis High School and Challenge High School learned about water issues and photography through artists visits to their classrooms.

LTP director Mary Doyle-Glover leads a student tour during FotoFest 2004

Literacy Through Photography®
The FotoFest Writing & Photography Project
FotoFest's pre-collegiate education program since 1990

• provides hands-on projects that asks adolescents to identify and study important relationships in their lives
• employs a stimulating mix of writing, photography and visual literacy
• brings family and heritage into the classroom to create more points of contact
• engages students in the development of critical thinking skills
• shows marked improvement in writing test results and communication skills
• acts as an ideal Advanced Placement writing platform
• supports viewing and representing elements of Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills
• is aligned to National Standards of English Language Arts
• integrates students into academic life, and provides support and growth programs for teachers

In the past, schools and teachers were selected on the basis of requests from teachers and principles. Today, FotoFest is training HISD teachers in LTP methods in coordination with an expansion strategy laid out by senior HISD staff. LTP has trained Master Teachers to supervise LTP classrooms with on-site school visits, allowing LTP staff to explore new training mission such as advanced LTP (LTP2) and English as a Second Language LTP. With the help of some of the most experienced teachers, FotoFest developed a Training Manual that provided step-by-step methodology for teacher training and classroom guidance.

FotoFest is expanding LTP to Houston area ISDs. LTP is collaborating with Project GRAD (Graduation Really Achieves Dreams). Since the fall of 2001, FotoFest has trained 27 teachers in 10 Project GRAD participating schools. By Spring 2003, over 400 Project GRAD elementary, middle, and high school students will utilize the Literacy Through Photography program.

Traditionally, FotoFest LTP has been taught in the classroom environment and in workshops during the summer months. FotoFest is working with Harris County Department of Education Cooperative for After School Enrichment (CASE) to provide after-school programming by certified teachers for at-risk students in ten Harris County School Districts. Research proves that after-school programming like CASE improves academic achievement and healthy development. Tara Faulds, teaching fellow for "After Blast" Citizen Schools at Killough Middle School states, "Literacy Through Photography has been fun to teach and the students are having fun learning. It is essential to have flexible, enriching material when teaching after the students have been in a classroom all day and FotoFest provides the structure to engage the students".

For the 2003-2004 School Year, Literacy Through Photography is taught in 44 schools, by 81 teachers, serving approximately 2,000 students in the 3rd to 12th grades. 15,000 students have used the LTP program since 1990.