Length of Lesson: 45 minutes
Content Objectives: Students will be able to observe a photograph of passengers on the deck of the S.S. Pennland; students will be able to notice various details in a photograph.
Language Objectives: Students will be able to share their observations of the photograph with a partner; students will be able to generate or seek words describing the photograph.
Materials Needed: an enlarged copy of the photograph Passengers of the S.S. Pennland on Deck from the book Ellis Island: New Hope in a New Land by William Jay Jacobs (page 3); chart paper.
Sequencing of Activities
Initiation: Students review the definition of the word immigrants and summarize salient points regarding immigration to America in the beginning of the twentieth century. I write down their responses as bullet points on chart paper.
Development: Because students have read some texts about immigrants' experiences on the way to America in the past, they have contextual knowledge about the subject of the photograph. This session is called "the initial encounter." I allow them enough time to examine the photograph and talk to a partner about their findings for two minutes. I prompt their talking about the photograph with the questions: "What do you see?" and "What do you notice?" Then we get together as a whole group to notice different details and record them on chart paper. Thus, in this photograph students may see many people on a ship deck bundled up in warm coats, hats, and shawls and wrapped in blankets. Mostly women are positioned in the front - they are sitting on some broad benches, and men are sitting or standing in the far end. People are scattered all around the deck, which must be the steerage area, the ship's bottom deck for poor people. People are wearing old-fashioned clothes. One man has a white beard. Women have their hair done in braids. One can hardly see their faces, but those that one can see look worried and thoughtful. There is a big bell in the far right-hand corner. There are also some mechanisms looking like big tubes with wheels around them. The photograph is black and white. Students describe the photograph. If a student is not able to find a specific word describing something in the photograph, he or she points to it, and other students and I help name the object. I urge them to talk only about physical features in the photograph, only about what they can see with their eyes, leaving any interpretations for the following lessons. As students talk, I write down single words worth recording on chart paper. In the next lesson, students will use these words in their questions about the photograph.
Closure: By the end of the lesson, we should have a long list of words related to the photograph. Together with students we read all these words aloud (perhaps several times), making sure students pronounce them correctly and fluently.
Methods of Assessment: informal - monitoring of students' comprehension through their oral responses.