Snap Shots: Details & Point of View

 

Purpose of Exercise: Fosters creative exploration of point of view, detailed description, and narrative as individuals and collaboratively. Good for a short story or personal essay assignment.

 

Description: You will need 5 - 13 interesting photographs or stills for students to work with. There are some laminated images available in the Writing Center if you would prefer to use those.

 

This exercise allows students to take a point of view and create a context for it. They then give the pictures purpose in relation to the context they have created. It forces them to bounce ideas off one another in small groups, and to create a plausible start for a fictional work using a point of view other than the personal "I".

 

Suggested Time: 25 minutes

 

Procedure: Place students in small groups (at the tables), and give each group one picture. Allow about 15 minutes for the groups to decide the camera’s point of view, creating a character for that point of view.Telling…Who he/she is- include physical description and other pertinent information.Where he/she is.Why he/she is there- what is the significance of the setting.With relevance to this character, find an object in the picture that serves as important to the camera person. Describe what it is and why it is important.

 

Based on the above responses, ask each group to develop a "lead-in" (a paragraph) for a novel, short story, poem, or essay—one that captures the character of the photographer, his or her motivations for taking the picture, and the overall significance of the image.

 

If there’s time, have each group share with the class and perhaps use this forum to point out effective, interesting details, etc. The rest of the class might speculate on where the story would go from this point.