Warring Student Photostory Portraits On Display at Boardman Library
How can words and pictures come together to help us tell our stories? As part of the Poughkeepsie Public Library District’s Big Read, fourth grade students in Ms. Shereen Cader’s class at Warring Elementary School tackled this question head-on through a residency project called PhotoStory Portraiture conducted in partnership with The Art Effect.
In this residency, which was based on Rachel Neumann’s edited collection I Am Home (one of this year’s Big Read mentor texts), students learned about the genre of memoir, and then wrote mini-memoirs expressing their thoughts and feelings about what “home” means to them. Students then learned about how image composition can help tell a story, and chose specific shots, angles, and framing for their portraits, to finally use professional photography and lighting equipment to stage and capture photographic portraits to accompany their writing. Through the tools of memoir and photo portraiture, these students took control of telling their stories.
Their work is on display at the Boardman Road Branch Library (141 Boardman Rd POK NY 12603) through the end of 2021.
