Using the photos

These activities can be selected and modified to meet the particular learning needs and styles of the pupils in your class.

Observation Exercises

Here is a small range of exercises to encourage pupils to study the photographs closely and in detail.  Such attention to descriptive detail will support them later when they come to reflect critically on the content of the photographs.

Describe and Draw

The children sit in pairs at a table ready to undertake the task.  On the other side of the room a set of photographs are arranged on a table underneath a piece of cloth.  The cloth is removed.  One child in each pair goes to this side of the room to select and study one of these photographs which the other partner has not seen.  The first child returns to sit beside the partner and to describe the picture.  The partner tries to draw what is described.  After five to ten minutes the partners who have tried to draw the pictures described to them go to study the photographs.  They have to select from all of the photographs the one which had been described to them, using their own sketch as a guide to their choice.  Once they have made their choices they return with their photographs to their partners to see if they have chosen the right one. 

The process continues until they have the right photograph.  They discuss with each other what made it easy for them to find the right picture.  They can repeat the exercise changing roles.

What’s missing?

Some of the photographs are laid out for all the pupils to see.  They study all of them for a short while trying to remember as many details about as many of them as they can.  They all turn away except for one who has been chosen.  She or he removes one of the photographs and then calls ‘One has gone. Which one is it?’.    The rest of the group try to  remember as much as they can about this missing photograph.  Then they are shown the photograph again and use this opportunity to describe what they can see. 

The activity can be repeated, with another pupil taking responsibility for removing one of the photographs.

Selection Exercises Do you see what I see?

The photographs are displayed for all the pupils to see.  Working as  individuals they choose three photographs which interest them.  They place a small piece of coloured paper by each one they have chosen.

Then they work in pairs.  They have the same task only this time they can  choose only three photographs between them.  Thus they have to justify their choices and persuade each other in making their new selections.  They can use different coloured pieces of paper to indicate their joint decisions.

The teacher can then guide a discussion with the pupils about the differences and similarities between the ways in which the photographs had been read and understood.

Diamond ranking

A group of four pupils is given a set of nine pictures.  They are given the task of selecting those pictures which they would most like to ask questions about.

They are asked to arrange the pictures on the table top in this way.  The more curious they are about a photograph, the higher they should place it in the diamond formation.

    
Getting inside the photograph Posing Questions

Working in groups of four, the pupils list questions which they would like to ask the people in the photograph they have selected. It is as if they are preparing themselves for an interview with these people.

They are asked to prioritise their questions.  Each group is then asked to describe their chosen photograph and to share the questions which they would like to pose to those in the photograph.

Listening to the story

The teacher shows the class each picture in turn as they are numbered in the file Zambuko Pictures’.  The teacher reads the account given in the file ‘About the Photographs’.

The teacher guides a discussion about what has been learnt about the community from this story.