This assignment involved selecting a photograph and creating a complete lesson around it using the "Reading a Picture" concept. I selected the above photograph, entitled "Powerful Women". During this lesson, students will examine images of famous Canadian Women on postage stamps. They will make detailed observations and inferences about the pictures. They will research their powerful Canadian woman, write a journal entry, and present their findings to the class in the form of a skit. I selected this image because I think it is improtant for girls to learn about positive female role models in the past.
Although the "Reading a Picture" concept was a new strategy for me to use in Social Studies or History, I feel that I don't need to do any revision to my lesson until after I have put it into practice. I had used a similar strategy in Language Arts when my sixth grade class studied Lois Lowry and her writing strategies. One of her writing strategies invovles taking a photograph and using it as the starting point for a story. Before writing their story, students first needed to analyze a photograph and extrapolate as many details as possible of the setting, including time period and geographic location, as well as possible events that could occur in that setting.
To create my "Reading a Picture" lesson, I combined activities and lessons outlined in the three suggested coursework sources (see below). I also used my own "tried and true" strategies, as well as Morton's co-operative learning strategies. These strategies included placing students in long term groups, assigning co-operative roles (checker, recorder, encourager, and gatekeeper), and a participation pie. As a science teacher, I am familiar with the idea of assigning co-operative roles, although in science class I use roles such as: material manager, personnel manager, task manageer, and time keeper. I am definitely eager to try Morton's suggested roles in my social studies class next year.
I also used a variety of questions that began with factual questions such as "What do you see? List the people, objects, the actions occurring, and the landscape you see." The type of questions then progressed to ones that require critical thinking such as " Who do you think this woman was? Why is the postage stamp commemorating her?".
Coursework Sources:
Examining Old Pictures and Photographs
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words: Visual Literacy
Other References:
Morton, Tom. "Co-oeprative Learning in Secondary Classrooms". The Anthology of Social Studies: Issues and Strategies for Secondary Teachers. Ed. Roland Case and Penney Clark. Vancouver, BC: Pacific Educational Press, 2008. 233-243.