The tier approach with images or La Casa Abbandonata

This is my 100^th post so I thought I would allow myself some frivolity by way of celebrating.

Images will yet again come in handy in this free-writing venture. This time we will look at the painting of a house in its surroundings. There is enormous potential for language production there for almost any level and age of learner.

I will not use standardised levels of knowledge as I am disinclined to label anything that defies categorisation. I will simply make some suggestions for exploiting the image in different ways in class moving from a lower to a higher level.

La Casa Abbandonata by Carlo Carra

Ø How many windows are there?

Ø How many windows can you see?

Ø Where is the house?

In a forest

On the edge of a forest

In the middle of nowhere

Ø Use some adjectives to describe it.

·       big, old

·       ruined

·       abandoned

·       solitary with big empty eyes of windows

·       decrepit

·       fallen into disrepair

Ø What is inside the house?

·       Nothing

·       I don’t know.

·       I have no clue.

·       I haven’t got the foggiest idea.

·       The remains of old furniture

·       Overgrown grass

·       Emptiness

Ø What happened to the residents of the house?

·       They moved to another place.

·       They emigrated to a more promising land.

·       They grew tired of isolation and loneliness.

·       They died off.

Ø Say something about the surroundings.

·       There are lots of trees and bushes.

·       There are tall trees and thick green-greyish foliage.

Ø Ask a question about the house.

·       When was it built?

·       Is it haunted?

·       Will it be inhabited again?

Ø You are allowed to add one item in this image. What would it be? Where would you place it?

·       A roof on top of the house.

·       A swing suspended from the bare tree in the left corner of the image.

·       A stony path leading to the house.

Ø What emotions do you experience when you look at this image?

·       sadness, discomfort, nostalgia, apprehension, fear

Ø This was the first or the last scene in a film. Write the first few lines of a character’s reminiscences of this house.

·       We left the city to live in the country for the rest of our lives.

·       When father passed away, mother could not face spending another day in the sprawling unfriendly city.

·       The house stood there with its arched windows boarded up – alluring and intimidating at the same time. How were we to rid it of its past and make it ours? How were we to efface all the remnants of its previous occupants’ lives still lingering inside and outside?

Ø You once lived in this house. What is your best or worst memory of it?

·       My brother and I raced to the top of the tree, and I always won.

·       Every morning, when I opened the window, the sunlight would stream into my room making everything bright and transparent, a minuscule wonderland.

·       The wolf was right there on the doorstep emaciated and in dire need of food and shelter, and mother’s hard-headed defence was in shreds. The wolf was taken in and nursed back to health, but when the day came to let him go, …