As ABE teachers, we are excited by the possibilities that art-images, objects, photographs hold to inspire learners to write. Art is a wonderful prompt for writing, because we all have unique experiences that come to mind when we write, and each of them is valid, valued, and personal.

The Power of Personal Photos
For Andrea, the power of a personal photograph for evoking writing cannot be stressed enough. At our Network 2004 workshop on inspiring ABE writers, Andrea illustrated a powerful technique. She began by sharing a video clip of a midwestern town taken after a tornado had passed through and destroyed many homes and buildings. We saw an auditorium filled with tables, covered with hundreds of photographs, scattered remains of the tempest. As the townspeople walk up and down the aisles trying to recover their memories, viewers were left wondering, what would happen if our own personal photographs were lost or de-stroyed? Andrea stopped the clip; she then shared photographs of her parents and grandparents. Using an intriguing photograph taken before her parents married, Andrea led the group into an exercise of observation, asking:

• Where are these two people?
• What are they doing in the photo?
• Who took this picture?

As she shared the story behind the photos, Andrea modeled a guided writing exercise she has used with her ESOL learners. Using their own personal photos, learners begin by answering questions in a graphic organizer (see chart below). The chart helps students focus on specific information to questions that can then be expanded upon for more detailed writing.

Pre-Writing: Gathering the Details
The questions above provide a framework that allows even the shyest writer to respond, and reduces students' fear of having to come up with something completely "out of the air" to write about. Andrea then models a first draft of her favorite photograph, sharing with us the writing she shares with her learners.

By taking the responses to the question in the first chart, the information can be turned into complete sentences that form the foundation for the writer's ideas, while providing lots of opportunity to add extra detail and information in the writing revision stage.

For our learners, personal photos invite them to "tell their story" and start from something familiar. Students can choose to include information that they feel is relevant and "safe" to share.

Every Object Is Full of Story
Jane's background as a museum educator is the inspiration for using objects (both familiar and unfamiliar) to inspire writers. At the Network conference, she began by asking participants in our workshop to think of a special memory-one that evokes our senses-and asked What do you see? What do you hear? What do you smell? What does it feel like? Does it have a special taste?

These questions framed our curiosity for the object she brought out to the audience. We began by examining the object closely. As we passed the object through the audience, we had a chance to feel it, play with it, try to open it, look inside, see if it made a sound. Through reflection and responding to a series of questions about the object, we learned that the object Jane passed through the audience is a barn lantern that was used in the early 1800s, and we came to understand the design and functionality of the lantern for its original users.

For Jane, questioning strategies are a great way to engage students actively in the learning process. The teacher facilitates a dialogue between the student and the object. The questions posed to students can help build skills in critical thinking, writing, and reflection.

Different questions have different purposes, depending on the response you intend to elicit. For example, asking questions that use one's senses elicits descriptive information about the object. Asking students questions that build on the descriptive, as well as prior knowledge), and applying that information for other purposes, encourages student to process information, make inferences, summarize, and organize what they know. Finally, asking questions that have students using higher-order thinking skills encourages students to develop new ideas, make predictions, formulate hypotheses, or support an opinion about the object.

These questioning strategies represent a hierarchy of questioning roughly based on Bloom's Taxonomy, but there are other levels of thinking skills that can be drawn upon, too.

The Truth of a Photograph
To illustrate her use of photographs in teaching writing at the Network conference, Janet hung a variety of pictures from magazines and newspapers around the room. She began by asking participants what they noticed as they entered the workshop room; what caught their eye? Everyone noticed the collection of pictures on the wall, aware that the room looked physically different from most of the conference rooms. She then asked them to stand by a nearby photograph on the wall, and to begin by simply describing what they saw in the picture. She reminded participants that simple observation must prevail at that initial observation point, and to beware of the temptation to leap into judgments and speculations about who the people are, what they are doing, why they are doing it, or how they are feeling.

As participants began to share information about their pictures, Janet asked them to reflect on what struck them. and asked: Did the picture remind you of anything in particular? In what ways does it relate to your own experience? As participants shared this information with a partner, the room became abuzz with conversation. A spark had been lit, interest increased, and excitement flowed as people eagerly engaged in discussion and reflected on their observations and experiences.

Using Pictures
In the ABE/ESOL classroom, photographs can serve the same powerful purpose as they did with teachers at the Network conference. They provide a starting point for rich discussion and many activities. The rich imagery of a picture evokes not only students' interest but also provides a stimulus for writing in response to it. A picture can catch us in the moment and still allow us to transcend it. Using pictures also encourages students to think creatively and critically.

Using pictures students can:

• tell the story behind the picture;
• give the picture a title and explain it;
• write from the perspective of a person portrayed in the picture;
• prepare a debate on a theme evident in the picture.

Using pictures, teachers can:

• teach compare and contrast strategies using more than one picture;
• teach simple vocabulary and descriptive words;
• teach letter writing skills by encouraging students to write a letter to one of the characters in the picture or write a letter to the editor about an issue depicted in the picture.

In addition, pictures can be adapted for many activities, including pair work, small group and whole class cooperative learning, making them particularly suitable for multi-level classes.

Objects and pictures,can provide a common or shared experience for adults to explore together. They are easy to collect and transport, they can reflect the individual interests of teachers and students. They are free or low cost, and they can be used over and over again!

Andrea O'Brien is the staff developer at the Lawrence Public Schools Adult Learning Center. She can be reached at aobrien@lawrence.k12.ma.us