Portraits of Purpose: Community Voices
Tenth-grade students explore visual storytelling!
This spring, 10th grade students are stepping into the role of storytellers as part of their Community Voices unit—an interdisciplinary project that blends language arts, visual storytelling, and civic engagement.
"As part of the 10th grade Community Voices Unit, students interview and photograph individuals who play meaningful roles in our local community. To develop their visual storytelling skills, students explore photography techniques that help convey a person's story through an image. In preparation, they practiced by photographing one another around campus using these new skills," exclaimed Brette Book, Upper School English Department Chair
Through a series of guided workshops, students are learning how to use light, framing, and composition to capture more than just a portrait—they’re capturing personality, presence, and narrative. These images, paired with thoughtful interviews, will ultimately become part of a larger showcase that honors the people who shape our community in quiet, everyday ways.
The practice sessions on campus gave students a chance to refine their camera skills and experiment with different ways to tell a story visually. From candid shots to posed portraits, each photo became a small study in perspective and empathy.
The Community Voices project encourages students to look closer, ask deeper questions, and consider how stories are told—not just through words, but through the powerful medium of image.
The John Cooper School
From Curiosity to Wisdom
The John Cooper School is an independent, non-sectarian, co-educational, college preparatory day school. Our mission is to provide a challenging education in a caring environment to a diverse group of select students, enabling them to become critical and creative thinkers, effective communicators, responsible citizens and leaders, and lifelong learners.
The John Cooper School seeks to attract qualified individuals of diverse backgrounds to its faculty, staff, and student body. The School does not discriminate against any individual in admissions, educational programs, personnel policies, general practices, or employment, on the basis of race, color, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, national or ethnic origin, physical disability, or age.
The John Cooper School seeks to attract qualified individuals of diverse backgrounds to its faculty, staff, and student body. The School does not discriminate against any individual in admissions, educational programs, personnel policies, general practices, or employment, on the basis of race, color, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, national or ethnic origin, physical disability, or age.
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