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| The picture was displayed to a group of Year 6 pupils at St. Oswald's Catholic School in Ashton-in-Makerfield. They spent around thirty minutes exploring it verbally, listening and responding to each other’s perceptions before jotting brief planning notes. They were then given around forty minutes of lesson time to produce their writing, with the expectation that this would be completed for homework. Several pupils elected to word process their work. | |||
There was initial discussion as to what pupils could see, which moved from location to interpretation Prompt questions included:
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| (At this point there was discussion around the term claustrophobic) Pupils were encouraged to think unconstrainedly: there were no correct or incorrect answers only a requirement that suppositions were explored. | |||
| Several preferred to begin to think about the picture in terms of its date, noting features of clothing and interior decoration which defined the 70's style. Others immediately looked for plausible explanations of the relationship between the adolescent boys and the older man in whose hand was a cigarette packet. Had Alan been caught smoking? Was he hanging his head in dejection, shame or indifference? Which character was Alan? Pupils were divided on this issue and some suggested that he may not actually be depicted or perhaps his room had been taken over by squatters or was a shrine to him. One boy, following the idea of the room as a railway carriage rather than a static location, became intrigued by the part played by the girls on the beach. Were they friends or foes? How did the characters make their way between the room and the beach? Was there a door out of sight to the observer? Perhaps the cigarette packet actually a remote control device? | |||
| Alan's Room was chosen because it offered surrealistic qualities combined with several potential narrative lines. As there are six key character's in the frame (seven if the ghostly figure behind the frame-within-a-frame is included) there is the possibility of thinking oneself into the scene from various standpoints. | |||
| Discussion of the picture was spontaneous and unembarrassed. Pupils seemed liberated by the opportunity to develop their own train of thought. Specific vocabulary was offered at various points in the discussion to clarify meaning and suggest synonyms. This was noted at the point of introduction (identity, image, hypothesis, speculation, explanation). Pupils were then invited to think in role as one of the characters portrayed and decide:
The different effects of first and third person viewpoint were discussed and related for exemplification to texts they had read. It was agreed that the first person writing enabled the more direct transmission of attitudes and feelings. The opening stages of writing were explored and starter sentences provided as frames for pupils' to use if required. These focused on the location of the narrator in the majority of work submitted includes the personal pronoun 'I' or 'my' in the opening sentence. A future visit to this work to develop stylistic variety might involve the writing of alternative phrases of introduction.
details from 'Alans Room' |
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The work presented to you now features responses to Alan's Room from a cross section of the class. Many of their achievements were captured in high quality oral debate proceeding the written task. Of course there are many legitimate ways of continuing this theme in class pupils' responses could be displayed and compared regarding narrative style within the shared reading session of the literacy hour; pupils could examine a different painting and invent their own questions as a writing frame during independent activity; they could assume the roles of characters in the room and enact a conversation during the plenary which has been prepared as an independent activity. Pupils at St. Oswald's Catholic Primary School are used to presenting verbal explanations and speculating about the motives and behaviour of characters encountered in texts. They made the transition easily to paying minute attention to the detail within this picture. Alan's Room is an original work in the Picture Loans Collection based at Drumcroon. We would be delighted to hear about any other exhibits which have stimulated exciting pupils' writing. S. Ziebicki General Adviser English - Wigan Education Department |
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