American Soldier

A. I would say the most powerful picture is the one labeled "Breaking Down." It shows how hard Ian struggles in the Army with his problems. It shows how being in the Army is not easy and takes a lot of mental work, to not run away and stay fighting.

B. The images work together to tell a story because they show the order of the story, like when he first joins the army, and then it shows him at school one week before leaving. The photos also show his emotions and how his emotions change in each picture.

C. The captions enhance the photographs because they help explain what is happening if you can't already tell. They also tell his emotions if you can't tell from the picture. They also tell extra information that we should know.

D. Ian Fisher is a 17 year-old who enlisted in the army, he receives a phone call to confirm his enlistment, he is officially in the army. With only a week until he has to leave, he has a goodbye party, says bye to his best friends, his family, and his girlfriend. His drill sergeant, David Vance, starts 14 weeks of basic training, and sees which recruits are already going to quit. When the recruits finally earned their weapons, Fisher was very excited, he made machine gun sounds while being playful. These guns didn't help them when it came to the first simulation of a real war, David Vance said half the recruits would be dead by now. Weeks later he departs for Iraq and joins the rest of the army their. He sees Iraq and discovers new things, he learns you have to be aggressive when out in Iraq. Before he knows it he is sent home to his family and friends again, he has been waiting for the moment for so long. When he gets home he marries his high school girlfriend. Life is good again for him.

E. The captions with Ian in them are usually written in present tense.

F.  1. Three
     2. They tell what he is doing
     3. They say what he does that you can't tell from just looking at the picture.
     4. It usually includes a quote.
     5. Yes, most of them do.
     6. Yes some of them have 4 sentences.
G. You can tell a whole story from pictures and captions because the captions can tell information and basically tell the story. The pictures provide the emotions he is having, and also the order of events.

H. Writing a story can also help instead of just putting pictures and captions because it can tell more information then just a little bit, like a caption does. It can also provide background information, like where Ian is from where his family is from and things like that. Also i think some people would rather read a story instead of just look pictures and read captions.