Spotlight: Turning the Page

Mister Crabs

By Tyonna Brown, Ms. Chu’s 1st grade class

“My photograph is of me at the market. I went to the market with my grandma. My grandma is wonderful! She took me to the market so we could take photographs together. We took lots of pictures. When we got home from the market, we ate Mister Crabs. They were delicious! I loved this photograph because we had a fun day.”

Turning the Page (TTP) builds partnerships between Northeast and Southeast D.C. public schools, parents and community stakeholders, with the belief that every child has the potential to achieve, if given the resource-rich learning environment that families, schools and community members can provide.

Turning the Page first connected with Literacy Through Photography when Wendy Ewald’s exhibition Secret Games: Collaborative Work with Children was shown at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 2002. In conjunction with the exhibition, the Durham LTP team held a workshop in DC, and three people from the Turning the Page  program attended.  TTP then invited the Literacy Through Photography staff back to DC in summer 2003 to teach a five-day training for 14 DC public school teachers. Since then TTP has continued to build our program.

Turning the Page has successfully engaged Washington D.C. public school teachers and students in community based-learning with more than 60 DCPS teachers and 2,200 students participating in their Literacy Through Photography program since 2003.

Through this innovative partnership between Turning the Page and D.C. public schools, students develop writing and photography skills as a means of self expression. Students base their photography and writing projects around three community-based themes: self & dreams, family, and neighborhood.

TURNING THE PAGE SLIDESHOW