Our students, ever the digital natives, are awash in images. They scroll through them—scrutinizing, liking, and commenting. They capture, share, and meme-ify them. They create their own images and even break news with them.
As writing teachers, we can tap into this energy for imagery by inviting students to incorporate visuals in their writing and storytelling. But when we do so, we should also teach how to use images ethically and effectively. Captions can help.
How should students write captions?
Use the following activity to help students create accurate captions, credit lines, and alt text for images.
Teacher Support
Consider this support for the activity.
Levels
4–12
Learning Objectives
- Integrate and evaluate visual content presented in diverse media and formats.
- Create accurate, informative captions.
- Provide proper attribution.
- Add accessible alt text to digital images.
- Share images ethically.
Teaching Tips
- Find and share examples of effective captions from news sites, newspapers, and other publications, either in print or online.
- Challenge students to find and integrate images into an ongoing writing project. Have them create captions, credit lines, and alt text.
- Use the activity to spark larger discussions about the ethics of using and sharing images online.
- Introduce and encourage students to use public domain images to avoid copyright concerns. Here are a few sites with public domain images:
- Wikimedia Commons
- Creative Commons
- Flickr Creative Commons
- Library of Congress
- U.S. Federal Government websites (ending in .gov)