Photograph Viewing Guide

Authentic Inquiry vs. Exploitation:

Many of the images are gruesome pictures of violence and death.  How do we best use such photographs, if we use them at all?

• Main idea: teachers should de-emphasize visceral reactions to horrible pictures of atrocities, and emphasize inquiry into motivation and intent.  For example: why did some human beings do this to others, and how did the perpetrators justify their actions?
• From the Jewish Holocaust curriculum from the National Holocaust museum – to show gory photographs is to exploit the dead.  How would their families feel?
• What do you see, what do you think about what you see, what do you need to know to understand the picture better?
  • People: what are they wearing, what are they carrying, what are they doing, what do their facial expressions tell us?
  • Background: what is on the wall, on the ground, in the background?
  • Land
  • Physical structures

Reading Like a Historian/Stanford History Education Group framework

1. Contextualizing – asking students to locate the photograph in time and place and understand how these factors shape its content

• When and where was the photograph taken?
• What was different then?
• What was the same?
• How might the circumstances in which the photograph was taken affect its content?

2. Sourcing – asking students to consider who took the photograph as well as the circumstances of its taking

• what was the photographer’s perspective
• why, when and where was the photograph taken
• is the photograph reliable?

Personalizing and making historical photographs relevant to students

• How can non-Central-American origin students being to see themselves in the pictures?
• Have you and your family experienced anything similar to the individuals and families you see in the pictures?
• How can students of Central-American and other Hispanic/Latino heritage see themselves in the pictures? Have you and your family experienced anything similar to the individuals and families in the pictures?