Rationale: This is an opening activity for a mini-unit in my Film as Dramatic Literature Class, a semester-long senior elective that meets every other day. In the unit, the students explore how  Debra Granik's film Winter's Bone explores the impact of environment, social class,  and gender on the coming of age of a young female protagonist, Ree Dolley (played by Jennifer Lawrence). To help the students empathize with Ree, a young woman who comes from an environment that more privileged viewers may see as ugly, brutal, and -- in the words of one reviewer-- "post apocalyptic"-- I selected several photographs that feature abandoned environments. While many feature urban spaces ,rather than Winter's Bone's more rural setting, they are valuable for the way they all imbue isolation or desolation with beauty and pride.

Process: 

1) The students will work in groups and each group will receive a print-out of one image to work with.

2) In these groups, the students will engage in the "Beauty and Truth" thinking routine: Where do you see beauty in these spaces? Where do you find truth? Students will use specific evidence from there thinking and make their understanding visible by recording their ideas on post-it notes on the images.

3) We will hang the images in the classroom so that students can re-consider and continue to think about their understandings as the unit proceeds

Outcomes: Hopefully, by deliberately looking for  and reflecting on the beauty in such spaces, students can understand why the young protagonist of the film is so loyal to her struggling community.