Problem
Turn your attention to the photograph on page 46, entitled "Ruth's Vanity (on the day she died)," and engage in a full-blown analysis of the visual details contained in that photograph. A larger copy of the photograph has been provided below.
Join with your classmates in the DB to exercise together the "habits of mind" that support and drive writing as inquiry. Working together, figure out how to answer the question, "Who was Ruth?"
1. Be sure all your posts are informed by the habits of mind discussed on pages 7-10 of our text. In other words, do not jump to any one answer too quickly but let us see you suspending judgment and diving into the details of the photograph without reaching too quickly for answers. Take an inventory of what you see without inferring anything because of what you see at first.
2. Don't start writing unless you have no idea what you are going to say next. Let's see you figure out what to say.
3. Avoid familiarizing Ruth and what you see in the photograph. What knee-jerk assumptions do you make about Ruth without thinking? Challenge those assumptions. For instance, do you assume Ruth must have been old because she died? But don't children die too?
4. Explore together, search for surprises together, challenge one another to keep thinking and making the familiar strange and considering new and different possibilities.