Read Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives (New York: Charles Scribners & Sons, 1890)--the hypertext version is available online; examine closely the images in the Jacob Riis exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York, "A Century Apart: Images of Spirit and Struggle, Jacob Riis and Five Contemporary Photographers"; examine closely the photography of and short essay about Jacob Riis, which are available at: http://www.masters-of-photography.com/R/riis/riis.html and http://www.masters-of-photography.com/R/riis/riis_articles2.html.

You will quickly get the point of the argument in How the Other Half Lives. READ THE SHORT ESSAYS AND CONSIDER ESPECIALLY THE IMAGES; BE ABLE TO PRESENT THE MAIN POINTS OF YOUR CHAPTER ON THE BOARD FOR CLASS DISCUSSION. IN OTHER WORDS, FIND SOMETHING HERE TO WHICH YOU CAN RESPOND AND FOR WHICH YOU HAVE A VISCERAL REACTION. What is the argument? What is his evidence? To what is Riis responding? And, what is the role of photography in making his case?

Examine the photographs, especially study those in the Museum of the City of New York exhibition because I will project these on the screen during class. What do you see and what do those elements of the photograph evoke? How do these photographs support Riis' arguments about the lower east side?

Finally, how would these documentary photographs fit into the Ohio social studies standards? And, how (if at all) would you use then in a 10th grade US history course?

Now examine the photographs and read carefully Kay Davis, Documenting the "Other Half". In light of having read Davis, have our impressions of the Riis images changed? Who, by the way, is Davis and how useful is her perspective? (We've talked about using materials from the web in our teaching. How would you RATE my choice of this essay? What questions or accolades do you have for me?)

Let's shift the conversation to using photographs in the context of the classrooms in which we will teach. What must we do in order to make use of them? What type of background work must we do? How do we present them to students? How does our presentation of the images affect our preparation? What are the specific skills that we teach students in the context of teaching them to analyze images? What also are the challenges of making these sorts of things useful in the classroom (i.e. tech. limitations, time, goals...)?