Pre-Writing Assignment #3

To begin my research on this photograph, I first looked back at what info we were already given. The only bit of historical info to spring off on is that it is from October of 1940. The only other thing we know is that it was found under the categories of children singing and also classroom.

One thing I mentioned in the previous post is that the schools were segregated during this time, and we are proven that fact by looking at the picture and seeing only white children. Schools were similar in the 1940's as they are today. Although this appears to be a music class, I did some research on elementary schools and classes in general during this time period to set the stage for school overall during the 1940's.

The subjects were similar to ours today, but the teachers and classrooms were more formal and strict, different to our fun, colorful elementary school rooms today. Boys and girls played on different playgrounds during recess in most schools. To see all the kids together in this image is nice. They all seem to get along as you don't see anyone fighting. They all look pretty focused on what I assume is the teacher off to the side except for the one little girl. After the war, it was proven that people stayed in school longer to get more of an education than they did before the war.

As far as the clothing worn to school during the 1940s, the children didn't have uniforms but they dressed in nice clothing. The boys often wore clothes that were a little less fancy than a suit and the girls were almost always in dresses.



After learning more about the time period of when this image was taken, you begin to feel more knowledgeable. When you first look at a picture, you usually make up a story as to what it is and you form an opinion on it. But once you research it and know more about the time period of the picture and about the subjects in the picture, your views may change from your preconceived ideas. For me and this image, I feel more connected to the children knowing what they have just gone through with the war and I feel sympathetic towards them but also heart warmed to still see smiles on their faces.

Works Cited

"American Elementary Schools in the 1940's." 1940s Education. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Oct. 2009.
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"Farming in the 1940s." Wessels Living History. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Oct. 2009.
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"School Clothes: United States Individual Experiences." Historical Boys Clothing. N.p., 1 July 2008.
Web. 4 Oct. 2009. .

2nd Document Post

When taking a more in depth look at the picture chosen, other factors to consider are thoughts about the building and the lives of the children past this image, yet still thinking about the terms from our text such as vectors of attention and framing/cropping.

The first question to touch on is how are the children arranged? When I think back on my days in elementary school, assuming that is where this picture was taken, the structural stairs we stood on called risers come to mind. The children in this picture look semi arranged in what could be a riser structure. The shorter kids are mainly in front and it seems to be increasing with height has you move through the picture. It is definitely not as structured as one would assume for a performance, but for a practice during class, which is what I infer this picture to be, it works. There are some kids hidden but you can see a feature from all of them. Another piece with how the children are arranged is that there is no certain pattern with the genders. Boys are standing by boys and girls and vice versa. The children don't show any sense of bothersome towards their arrangement in this photo. The only child that appears to be distracted perhaps by another student is the little girl in front.

I feel like the vectors of attention and ethos kind of go hand in hand when examining photography. The vectors of attention pursue what the photographer wants the audience to see in the picture, and ethos as we know are what the audience sees in you. I touched a lot on vectors of attention in my last post, but when connecting the term with ethos, I think the audience would definitely be able to understand what the focus is to be. Without knowing the whole story on the image, the logos are kind of up in the air. We are able to create our own thoughts as to the reason for the structure and what argument it portrays. After considering the picture a few more times, I'm starting to wonder if the singing is actually taking place in a performance situation. The children all have nice little outfits on and the backdrop on the wall looks like it could have been used to set the stage in a classroom setting. The image at the top of tis blog was added because it shows what a classroom looks like during this time to help picture what the rest of the room may look like that they are in. Next, we consider the pathos. As an audience member, I appreciate being able to see this image as it expands my knowledge or feel for the 1940's. After a little more research, it made me also notice that there are only white students in the image.

Other terms from our text that are incorporated in the image's makeup are things like lighting and coloration, including hue, saturation, and brightness. The image is overall pretty dark, with just the white of the teeth shining through. The colors aren't bright, but there are colors included. I think the colors and brightness levels in images really set the overall tone. Something I found kind of interesting is that I picked an image that was color when in previous blogs I touched on how black and white images are my favorite. I decided that color would be easier to examine more with what the colors are doing for the image.