How to use pictures in the ESL class (VI)

Creative Writing

Have students use photographs as creative writing prompts. Students should scroll through the 6 Q’s archive and pick one photograph to use as a prompt for a story. Have them imagine an answer to one or more of the following questions to begin thinking about how the photograph might translate into a story:

• What happened just before this photograph was taken?
• How do the people in this photograph feel about each other?
• Imagine someone else is looking at this photograph and remembering the day it was taken. How do they feel looking at this photo? Why?
• What is happening outside the frame of this photograph?
• Who is taking this photograph? How do they feel about what is going on?
• What are the people in this photograph saying to each other?
• Imagine that the day that this photograph was taken was the best or worst day in one of the depicted peoples’ lives. Why was this day so important to them?
• Imagine that one of the people in this photograph feels guilty. Why?

Once students come up with an answer to one of the above questions for their chosen photograph, they will write from the perspective of one of the people in the photograph. Or, if they would rather, they can write from the perspective of someone who knows the people in the photograph, but is not depicted.