Why doesn't he smile?

Objective & content

This Look Closer episode (Portraits mini-series, episode 18) is a short documentary about Frederick Douglass and his photographs. A single narrator gives the facts of his life: born into slavery in Maryland, in the United States, around 1818, he escaped in 1838 by train to the North, dressed as a sailor, and became a free man, a writer and a speaker who spoke against it all his life. He sat for more than 160 portraits, more than any other American of his time, and he almost never smiles in them. Few people smiled in photos in those days, but Douglass had his own reason: many pictures showed Black people as funny, or always happy, and he wanted people to see a serious, strong and proud man. It is a comprehension episode: the narration uses the past simple for his life and the present simple for his photos, and no grammar point is taught. Learners listen, then answer the 10 questions in the app: 9 on facts and 1 on vocabulary (slave). The study topic is portraits and self-portraits: what a picture says about its sitter.

Materials & prerequisites

The folder holds the audio, the slideshow and the script. Each pack is a one-page PDF with the text, three photos of Douglass, the key words and the 10 questions: a pupil pack, and a teacher pack with the answers highlighted. It also has a pupil sheet and a teacher sheet with the answer key. It has no lesson plan. The key words define each new word plainly, and the questions follow his escape, his work and his photos; none asks pupils to judge. Play the episode twice, hand out the pupil pack, then use the closing question (why does Douglass almost never smile in his photos?) for a short class discussion, with learners pointing to his clothes and his eyes in the photos. Learners should know the words photo, train and clothes, and be able to read 1818 and 1838.

Curriculum alignment

Tagged portrait-self-portrait (5e, "Portrait, autoportrait", Cycle 4). The episode targets CEFR level A2-.