Creating a photo story – supporting writing to inform, describe and persuade

The concept 
 
A teacher in a comprehensive school said:

I had identified from previous work that my all-ability group of Y7 students needed to improve the way they shape their writing to suit the demands of a particular purpose and audience. After starting with reading, inferring and deducing the authorial viewpoint in printed texts, I wanted my students to use their understanding of viewpoint to develop their own authorial voice in their writing.

She decided to address the issue by devising a series of lessons in which the pupils devised a photo presentation designed to persuade parents to send their pupils to the school, using ICT to teach the following:

• Effective and precise word/vocabulary choice;
• Style and tone appropriate to a specific audience;
• Structuring and organising a text with a real audience in mind;
• Selecting appropriately detailed content for the task and audience.

Why use ICT?

A conventional alternative to this unit would have been to design and produce a paper-based leaflet/prospectus.  An ICT-based approach offered several benefits.
Firstly, it allowed easy manipulation and multiple drafting of sequences of image, sound and text leading to the creation of an effective product with a real audience and purpose.
 
Secondly, pupils were assisted in generating informational content and structure by the access they had to a range of digital images.

Thirdly, pupils were motivated by the brief of producing a “film” in a recognisable form and to impressive levels of quality. 

Using ICT to make a multimodal text has the benefit of constraining the amount of text (spoken or written on screen) and therefore heightens pupil’s attention to effective word choices.

After discussion with the Local Authority consultant, the teacher decided to use ICT in the following ways:

• The provision of a series of digital images of the school, for pupils to arrange in order, using PhotoStory3;
• The construction of a promotional sequence incorporating transition, motion and spoken or on-screen text;
• The use of microphones and appropriate software for students to add their commentary to the `film’;
• The IWB to model the use of the software and to screen and peer assess the finished ‘film’.

The lessons

Learning objectives and related assessment focuses

7TLW10: organise texts in ways appropriate to their content, for example by chronology, priority, comparison, and signpost this clearly to the reader;
7TL S&L3: tailor the structure, vocabulary and delivery of a talk or presentation so that listeners can follow;
7SL1: extend their use and control of complex sentences;
7L14: define and deploy words with precision, including their exact implication in context.

AF1: write imaginative, interesting and thoughtful texts;
AF2: produce texts which are appropriate to task, reader and purpose;
AF3: organise and present whole texts effectively, sequencing and structuring information, ideas and events;
AF5: vary sentences for clarity, purpose and effect.
 
Lesson one

Before this lesson you will need to select a straightforward text (e.g. a short news report) and find two photos – one that would be appropriate and one that wouldn’t. You will also need to take a range of digital photos of your school.

Starter 
Undertake a quick purpose and audience activity in which you show pupils short extracts of a range of texts and ask them to identify the audience and purpose of each.
Ask students to feedback and justify their decisions by referring in detail to the texts. 
Establish the fact that audience and purpose are both central to the writer’s planning.

Introduction 
Show the class a couple of images; one of which would support one of the short texts appropriately and one that wouldn’t. Invite them to select the appropriate image and explain why the rejected image would be inappropriate. Explain the nature of authorial viewpoint by referring to the clues in the text and in the photo.

Development 
Now show pupils one of the photos of the school and ask them to consider the viewpoint that could be communicated if words were added to the image. Ask half the pupils to devise a short ‘voice-over’ which might be added to the image to make the school seem attractive to parents and the other half , a voice-over to be delivered by a newsreader reporting on a school fire which has destroyed Y11 coursework.

Plenary 
Pupils read out their voice-overs and explain their language choices. Ask them to suggest how the image might develop in order to reflect the words more effectively (e.g. a shot of charred folders). Ensure that pupils understand that the words and image are interdependent.

Lesson two

Starter 
Show pupils a brief clip from the TV news that illustrates the relationship between words and images. Ask pupils to explain the relationship to a partner. You will need to show the clip more than once. You may need to give pupils some sentence stems (e.g. the camera operator has chosen the image of…. in order to make the point that…..

Introduction/development 
Choose one of the images of your school and explain to the class that their brief is to work in pairs using laptops and PhotoStory3 to produce a promotional ‘film’ of the school targeting parents of Year 6 pupils. Now use the image to model the writing of the commentary being sure to demonstrate how you have considered parents’ concerns and chosen your words to reassure and convince them. Draw up a list of parental concerns/ desires that the successful ‘film’ will need to reflect.

The activity was split into the following stages:

1. Selecting the images from a bank to be used in their ‘film’.
2. Putting the images into a logical sequence within the software.
3. Discussing and drafting the commentary that could accompany each slide.

You might consider giving some or all pupils the opportunity to take their own photos. This will depend on the availability of cameras.

Plenary 
Pairs read out their draft versions of (3) and the rest of the class peer assess, using the list of parental concerns/desires as the success criteria.
Students should feedback to each other the success of the text and targets for improvements.
 
Lesson three

Starter 
Screen an image sequence from last lesson and ask the writer and peer assessor to discuss it in front of the class.

Introduction 
Students re-draft their commentary, using their sequence of images, keeping them focused on language, structure, detail and tone appropriate to the audience and purpose. 

Development 
Using microphones, pupils record their final commentary onto their slide sequence in PhotoStory3..
 
Ask a small group of pupils to make a second version of their film by removing the commentary and adding text and music.
 
This additional task of converting their audio commentary into on-screen text should generate some interesting challenges by encouraging them to explore the differences between spoken and written language and the ways in which viewpoint and voice are subtly shifted by the change in medium.
 
Plenary 
Play the final presentations to the class and peer assess, discussing the effectiveness of language, structure, content and tone in relation to the purpose, audience and viewpoint.

Evaluation

Most of the pupils in the class confirmed that they found the process of drafting, writing and communicating their voice and viewpoint easier with visual stimuli to guide them. In addition to this, pupils found having a real audience and a multi-modal outcome, motivating and engaging.
 
The teacher found that those pupils who were asked to move successfully from spoken to written text, keeping the audience, purpose and viewpoint at the forefront of their work made especially rapid progress.
 
Students working at level 3–4 were able to demonstrate an awareness of purpose and audience but they found it harder to sustain the authorial voice, which was sometimes inconsistent and unclear. However, this series of lesson enabled pupils gain a much clearer understanding of authorial voice which can now be built on with further practice.
The results of these lessons clearly showed that the move from authorial viewpoint to a more sophisticated understanding and expression of authorial voice is an area to be developed in subsequent lessons.

Developments

• Experiment with a version of the film that combines spoken words and on-screen text and evaluate the limitations/possibilities of this approach.
• Investigate more deeply the distinction between authorial viewpoint and authorial voice, for example by providing pupils with three or four texts that have the same viewpoint (purpose and audience?) but express and convey it differently.
• Give more time and consideration to identifying authorial voice and viewpoint in texts the pupils read in preparation for writing and developing their own voice.
• Enable students to use digital cameras to collect their own pictures to form the basis of authorial viewpoint/voice.
  

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