The Grandparent/Elder Project

Unit III: Lesson One

What can be learned from a photograph?

1. This lesson may be done online or offline, depending on the available equipment. If time or equipment constraints exist, do this exercise as a class, using a computer LCD projector.
   Online: Divide the class into groups of two to three students per computer.
   Offline: Print the photographs using overhead transparency film appropriate for your printer.
2. Use an overhead projector to display the photographs for the class.
3. Direct the students to the instructions Studying Photographs for the exercise on primary source photographs. The lesson uses the Dorothea Lange photographs of the migrant woman with her children.
4. Using the Photograph Observation Sheet as an aid, ask the students: "What do you see?"
5. If they say, they see a mother, ask them how they see a mother? If they say they see a sad woman, ask them how they see "sad"? Repeated questioning is important for the students to understand the difference between objective observations and subjective observations.
6. Point out to the students that they each observe different things and have different perceptions of the same thing. Intense disagreements may occur when the students look at the various photographs. The debates about what is "seen" help to develop and reinforce the concepts of objective observations versus subjective observations and inferences.
7. As a conclusion to this lesson, the class as a whole should discuss what this series of six photographs by Dorothea Lange reveals about family life during the Great Depression.