Photovoice Gives Students a Voice

Students often struggle with ways to turn their experiences into meaningful stories. Photovoice is a way to use photography for positive social change and to help people tell their stories. I used Photovoice to help students process the uncertainty of moving back home when the university switched to remote in Spring 2020. Since I teach public speaking, I used those stories to teach public speaking skills as well.For example, one prompt I used was “an unexpected use of something.” I showed them a small hand weight that I used as a doorstop. I took creative pictures of the weight and then used it to tell a story in different ways. Each class students brought their photo and their story. They had to use the photo to tell different types of stories. Sometimes telling the story from a different perspective and sometimes telling it in only 5 words. The experience created an important bond between students as they shared very ordinary items from their life. It also presented a new springboard for student story telling. Funded in part by Provost Instructional Grant and special thanks to Photovoice: Ethical photography for social change