Yearbook

Leysin American School

Ms. Keegan Luttrell
www.leysinyearbook.weebly.com
kluttrell@las.ch

Course Description/Objectives:
This course is designed to teach the skills necessary to produce the school yearbook, which
oers a complete record of an entire school year. Students will study layout and design
techniques, writing and editing copy, headlines and picture captions. This course provides
the study of and practice in gathering and analyzing information, interviewing, note taking
and photography. Students will learn proong strategies and work independently with
photographers. At times, deadlines require that students work after school, on weekends,
and holidays.
The photography section of the course teaches students the necessary tools to capture
thought-provoking and technical photos for the yearbook. We study the functions of the
camera including aperture, shutter speed and ISO and how they work together so that
students have creative control over what type of picture they are taking. We examine
compositional tools and tricks to enable students to frame their photos in an interesting
way. We work in Photoshop on color correction, cropping and post - production retouching.
We spend time critiquing successful and unsuccessful photographs during class time.

Course Content:
Understanding exposure controls of a digital camera including white balance,

aperture, shutter speed and ISO

Manipulating and enhancing photographs in Adobe Photoshop
Organizing and editing photos in Adobe Bridge
Using text and image in Walsworth Online Design to create attractive layouts
Conceptualizing a theme for the yearbook
Writing about school events
Gaining insight into working with others for a unied result
You will learn photographic techniques and design skills
Video production skills and help with the senior video

Class Requirements:
I EXPECT:
R-E-S-P-E-C-T!!
Silence from the rest of the class when I am talking, or another is talking
Amazing things from each of my students
Creativity, diligence, expressiveness, exploration, struggle, frustration,determination,
commitment
You to come to classon time
You to participate in class
You to take responsibility for your work make-up work that is missed, work outside
of class
The best you can give each day. Some days are better than others. Let me know when
things are dicult. I will do my best to help.
You to clean up your messes, and yes.sometimes messes that are not yours
Respect of other people and their property, including the art rooms
No cell phones, unless we are using them for projects or I have told you that you can
use it for music.
Discussions to be appropriate.
Language and attitude that is respectful of all races, creeds, religions, colors, gender,
national origins, disabilities and sexual orientation
*RESPONSIBILITY*
Part of being in the digital art room and part of your professionalism grade is using your
materials and your time properly. You should take responsibility for the items and
equipment you have used during class. If you fail to clean up properly or if you misuse
your time it will aect your grade. This also pertains to showing up to events that you
have committed to cover for the yearbook and working as a team.

Grading:
Professionalism: 25%
Participation, support, and respect in all phases of this course is imperative. The class
dynamic depends on your energy, initiative, attitude, productivity and willingness to
get involved in group discussion and critiques. Your in class behavior and your
commitment to being on time and on task with what you produce will also factor into
this grade.
NOTE ON TECHNOLOGY: I will take up phones during demonstrations. You will be
allowed to listen to music with your headphones at a reasonable volume on a case
to case basis. I reserve the right to take your technology away if you abuse it and
send you to the Dean of Students Oce.
Quizzes: 15%
From time to time I will give you a quiz. This is to test your knowledge so that I have full
condence in your technical skills as a photographer or a designer. I know quizzes in
yearbook? Dont worry they arent that hard (if you paid attention).
Photography: 25%
All of you will be trained to take pictures on campus and take them well. You will be
assigned outside of class campus events, sports games, and trips or you will have to
organize who will take photos of trips (because we all cant go on every cultural trip, am
I right?) Even if photography is not your main focus, you will still be required from time
to time to take photos, so you will be evaluated on the assignments you turn in.
Design: 25%
Each of you will be required a section or more to complete for the yearbook. This could
be family, this could be senior pages, this could be sports pages. If you like designing
more than photography, no problem you can have more pages to complete and work
on! But you will be evaluated on the quality of your designs and how you
communicated with images and text.
Attendance: 10%
At LAS the attendance policy states that if you have 3 unexcused tardies then that
becomes an absence. 3 unexcused absences result in 10% of your grade dropping.

How I grade individual assignments:

1. Completion: 20%
Is it completed in a timely manner? How can we make sure that we are on task?
2. Craftsmanship: 20%
Have you carefully crafted this work? What is the quality of the work?
3. Technique: 20%
Have you understood the technique that is being taught and how have you incorporated it into
your work?
4. Use of materials: 20%
Have you used your materials wisely? How have you learned to master the material?
5. Neatness: 20%
How neat is the turned in work? How attractive is the nal product?

Note that some of the assessment can vary from assignment to assignment.

*One Final Note*

Each class I have this year is going to learn more about the history of Leysin and
incorporate it into their work. There may be specic assignments or specic guests that
come to visit our class but expect to learn more about what happened here so that you
can respond to your environment through art.