Penn State Institute for the Arts and Humanities

Programs & Initiatives

Summer Seminars for High School Teachers

Summer 2006 ~ Exploring Place Through Writing and Photography: Building Visual and Written Literacy in the High School Classroom

This interdisciplinary five-day seminar provided activities and materials to help high school teachers develop innovative and enjoyable ways to look at the world with fresh eyes, to think about the idea of “place,” and to express what they see. The seminar was taught by Penn State associate professor of English Robert Burkholder, who teaches experience-based literature courses, and Susanne Hackett, a Master’s candidate in Art Education, whose thesis emerged from teaching photography to youth on the Northern Cheyenne reservation and from exploring multiple ways of knowing and viewing the world. Participants read theoretical texts by various writers like John Dewey, Annie Dillard, and Leslie Marmon Silko, viewed films like Powers of Ten and Rivers and Tides: Working with Time, put theoretical knowledge into practice on canoeing and hiking field trips to nearby places of historical and natural significance, and learned to use a camera, both digital and 35mm, as a tool for seeing and for writing about their experiences outdoors in ways that complemented their photography. Seminar participants were exposed to a wide range of powerful teaching approaches and left equipped with techniques and materials to enhance their own curriculum.