Our presentation in Philadelphia was the culmination of 4 years of compiling photos and video clips of our students and weaving them into collages, showcase portfolios, performances, and presentations. We used the Microsoft program Photo Story (which is typically found in Computer/All Programs/Photo Story 3 for Windows) systematically to build community and encourage reluctant writers among our diverse adult literacy and emergent English language learners.

We demonstrated how digital cameras are used to document learning or events in students’ lives. Research into multiple intelligences and learning styles reveals the merits of technology and visual representations to reach struggling students. Photo Story fosters the development of autobiographical, narrative, procedural, and process writing.

We started our talk by using total physical response, music, and student images of yoga poses and dance moves to relax and loosen up the audience. Photo Story is also effective to chronicle group projects, field trips, or celebrations. Translating such activities into Photo Story enables students to make personal connections to the curriculum using images they themselves create or choose. It can also scaffold writing for beginning students by lowering the affective filter, promoting relaxation as a prewriting technique, triggering more authentic writing, and adding voice to writing. We offered various examples to our audience, including a takeaway CD containing several literary magazines, Photo Story projects, and writing activities.

One of the more intangible benefits of using photo projects consistently is that they promote a sense of inclusiveness and community spirit. For example, we capture friendships on film, encourage multilevel interactions, and promote peer helping.

We plan to continue documenting successful activities by revisiting, for example, pure black-and-white images with iconic one-line statements by our beginners; highlighting the interaction between our students and high school artists; and promoting writing and expression with even more flavor. Recently, we began exploring a program called Animoto and we have experimented with integrating video clips into our presentations, so that our Philadelphia (Photo) Story will continue.

Martin Van Opdorp has taught ESOL, science, and social studies content classes at South Lakes High School and South Lakes Transitional ESOL High School in Reston, Virginia, since 1999. He founded and sponsored the South Lakes International Club for Education/Entertainment (SLICE) for several years and has published numerous literary magazines to showcase his students’ numerous talents. Mr. Van Opdorp previously taught overseas in Peru, Korea, and Indonesia, and was active in a nationwide study of the use of multiple intelligence techniques to promote literacy and language learning. Martin participated in a Fulbright teacher exchange in Ledesma, Argentina, in 2002, and received a Fulbright Alumni grant to produce a video anthology of his students and their communities. In 2004-05, Martin took a sabbatical and returned to teacher training as an instructor of ESL/EFL methodology courses at the graduate level at Sookmyung Women’s University in Seoul, Korea.

Mollie S. Calabrese earned a master of education degree in curriculum and instruction from George Mason University. Ms. Calabrese is cross-trained in special education, ESOL, and elementary education. Ms. Calabrese currently teaches at Annandale Transitional ESOL High School, an alternative high school program in Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia. Prior to this, Ms. Calabrese worked as an elementary classroom teacher, an elementary ESOL teacher, and a special educator in the Washington, D.C., Metro area and abroad in Denmark and Italy. Ms. Calabrese’s areas of interest include educational technology and family literacy.