Instagram presents some interesting possibilities for the pairing of text and image. It is traditionally image-heavy, more so than Facebook, but some users have expanded its boundaries to include poetry, short essays, and book reviews.
Methods
This assignment requires an Instagram account, and a computer and/or smartphone. To post a poem or flash fiction/essay, students would typically use a computer to write and format the work in an aesthetically pleasing way, then use their smartphone to take a photo of the work and post it to Instagram.
Instagram also enables the manipulation of images by layering text over picture. Students would use their smartphones to upload or take a photo, then use the photo-editor within Instagram to write text over the image. This could be any kind of writing, from creative nonfiction to poetry to argument.
The Instagram “story” function enables users to link successive images, which can feature text overlayed–and would enable a longer-form piece, or the organization of a short piece spread out over different images.
Some users have started a genre of Instagram review, in which they post a photo of the book’s cover, and write a short review in the comments section.
A hashtag with the course name would enable to instructor to keep track of posts.
Instagram help center
Examples
everydayafrica, where photographers post their photos of everyday life in Africa, documenting people’s normal lives, rather than the stereotypical safari photos of tourists and the like. Photos are (usually) accompanied by short interviews or essays.
jeffsharlet, Sharlet selects series of his short posts for longform word and image essays, for example, this one in Longreads
There is a giant contingent of “Instagram Poets” who post their work in these ways, operating under different related hashtags: #Instagrampoets, #Instagrampoetry, etc.
Book reviews are all over Instagram, under hashtags #bookreview, #bookreviews, #bookreviewer, etc.
subwaybookreview interviews people reading on subways all over the world, to get their short takes on the books they’re reading.
Learning Outcomes:
- Practice writing clear, succinct prose
- Enhanced awareness of audience
- Exposure to the relationship between word and image
