Self-Portrait as Object
This session is about using an object to imagine what it was like to go to school in Victorian times. Because it’s a self-portrait we’re writing it will be very personal and draw on our own experience of being a child and going to school.
We’ll begin by looking at some photos and a timetable of a school day to get an idea of what it was like going to school in Victorian times. Short class discussion.
Then, each child chooses / is given an object from the Victorian box. Circle time discussion to make sure we know what the objects are, initial detective work about their function etc.
Each child then mind maps ideas about their object, with questions to prompt them:
Points to mindmap or generate ideas:
Words to describe Object?
Colour? Material? Size?
Where it comes from?
Why it’s special?
Check back that everyone has a mind map of ideas and description.
Write a description of the object, where it came from etc.
Now: imagine that you are at school in the time the object was being used.
Underline the words in your description that you think could also describe you.
Write about yourself using these words. For example:
Self-Portrait As Slate and pencil
( * UNDERLINE = the words that I think could also describe me)
Where it comes from: a Victorian school room
Description: dark, grey, cold, heavy, hard, brittle.
Why special: It was used by children learning to write. They weren’t allowed paper so this was all they had to write on. You can write anything you think of with the pencil and rub it out afterwards with a damp cloth.
Self-portrait as slate and pencil
I was born in London, UK in 1830 and I was given my slate and pencil in 1837 — when I was 7 years old.
The slate was made of heavy, flat stone that is dark grey. It is brittle: it would break if you dropped it. I am delicate too because I am young and because my clothes are very thin. My family is quite poor and I don’t have a coat to protect me in winter.
The slate is clever because it can say anything at all – whatever you write on it. I am clever too: I have learnt to write and I love to write stories and poems on my slate. It is dark and cold, and I hate the dark, cold winter nights when there is only candlelight and gas lamps to light the houses and the streets. The slate is hard and I am hard too: I am tough to survive all the diseases, the hunger and cold that people live with in my family. Like my slate, sometimes I am filled with beautiful words and ideas, and sometimes I am sad and empty and I can’t learn anything because I’m so hungry. When I am naughty and the schoolmaster beats me, then I feel as dark and cold as the slate. When I am happy and daydreaming then I am as full of ideas as my slate pencil.
