Once ashamed, I’m now proud of my family’s Mexican roots.

Once ashamed, I’m now proud of my family’s Mexican roots.

My family came to the U.S. from Mexico. I used to be ashamed of our humble lifestyle. I offer these photos to show I’m now proud. This story won a third prize in News Decoder’s Ninth Storytelling Contest. Originally from Zapotitlan Palmas, a small town in...

Many students have much to say, but freeze when asked to put pen to paper. Asking them to first engage in other forms of self-reflection may make it easier to produce powerful written texts. Miriam Hernandez of Westover School demonstrates this point with her piece on growing up in the United States as a daughter of Mexican immigrants. Hernandez began with uncaptioned photographs of her family’s surroundings — a dinner table, a kitchen sink, a breeze through the front door — and later produced accompanying text — simple, direct, unvarnished — that complements the photos. Together, the pictures and text offer a candid glimpse of the author’s upbringing and how she came to terms with her heritage.
Exercise: Ask your students to take a series of photographs of life at home and to then write about what the images represent to them.

The Civil Rights Movement haunts us even today

The Civil Rights Movement haunts us even today

Inspired by Black Lives Matter protests, I offer a photo essay as a haunting reminder that the fight continues decades after the Civil Rights Movement. This story won a third prize in News Decoder’s Ninth Storytelling Contest. With my photography project, I...

The Black Lives Matter movement has stirred young people around the globe and raised hopes that racism and police brutality against Blacks can be curbed. For many elders, the hopes are tinged by nagging fears that a generation from now race relations will remain strained and injustices will persist. Lucy Bird, a 17-year-old student at Westover School, captures those worries in her haunting series of photos that juxtapose iconic images from the U.S. Civil Rights Movement with glimpses from BLM protests.
Exercise: Ask your students to apply their photo skills to create a visual essay that manipulates existing photographs to capture their concerns about the future.

COVID-19 filled me with fear — until I went home to China

COVID-19 filled me with fear — until I went home to China

COVID-19 left me in limbo in the United States, full of fear and anger. Then I returned home to China to face criticism before reuniting with my family. An empty John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York (All photos by Jasmine Li) So this is where I am going...

The coronavirus pandemic has put strains on students, their families, schools, entire communities. But Jasmine Li, a Chinese student at Westover School in the United States, provides a first-person account of the special difficulties facing foreign nationals caught in limbo as COVID-19 triggered global travel restrictions. Li cannot return to her temporary home at school, and when she finally makes it home to China, she discovers some compatriots consider her a traitor and urge her to leave. Adolescence can be a difficult period of self-discovery, but Li’s painful experiences are the product of a globalized world that, in normal circumstances, offers extraordinary opportunities but which, during a pandemic, sees forgotten borders re-emerge. Ask each student to describe their most difficult moment during the pandemic. How do their experiences compare?

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