Photo Journalism Academy

The overall purpose of the Young Photo Journalists Academy is to offer a positive youth
development (PYD) intervention to enhance the soft and “hard” skills, resiliency, academic 
competencies, and social emotional competence of program participants.  

The project offers 5 four-hour sessions (Monday-Saturday, June 30-July 5; Friday, July 4 is a holiday) at Park Morton Community Center, 615 Morton Street, Northwest..)  The sessions are designed to introduce participants to the basics of photography and artistic composition and to prevent learning loss by involving youth in a program that will hone their reading and writing skills.

Session One will begin with an initial assessment of literacy skills and set the stage for self-
paced instruction in captioning. 

Session Two will introduce participants to the basics of composing narrative captioning and 
storytelling. Composing and imagery will be guided by professional photographers. 

Session Three will include introduction to photography followed by camera mechanics 
subsequent modules. All instruction will be designed to be engaging and learner centered.

Sessions Four and Five: the youth will be in the field taking photos of different locations in the 
Park Morton neighborhood. These photos will be bound into photobooks.  Once the bound photobooks arrive, a reception will be held for parents, siblings, other relatives and friends of the participants so community members can enjoy the work.

Objective: Offer a camp experience designed to improve social and emotional competence 
and reduce summer learning loss. 

Learner Outcomes:  

1. Participants will learn how to create captions for photos. 
2. Participants will construct photo books as a culminating activity.
3. Participants will make personal assessments of the status of their community using their own original voices.

Instructional supplies consist of laptops and digital cameras that individual participants will have access to throughout the camp.

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