“Click a Chick: A Photo Essay Documenting the Birth of a Chick”

As an extension of our embryology in the classroom unit sponsored by the University of Illinois, students will create a photo essay which details the 21 days a chick spends in its incubated egg and the week it lives in the classroom after hatching from its shell. Every day, each student team will take digital pictures of their chosen egg in the incubator observing differences in the position of the egg, factors that may influence egg growth such as temperature and location, and changes known to take place inside the eggs. Using these pictures, students will begin to create their stories. They will select important pictures and write a corresponding text. The story will continue as the chick hatches, assumes its place in the classroom, and then eventually returns to the farm. The students are, in effect, photo biographers documenting their subjects’ evolution. They will use their imaginations and literary elements such as personification, foreshadowing, and flashback to embellish their work.