Rose meets Mr Wintergarten
by Bob Graham
Rose meets Mr Wintergarten, first published in 1992, by prolific Australian author/illustrator Bob Graham was introduced to me this year by a colleague at school. It quickly became a favourite. It's about a young girl named Rose Summers who moves next door to a large, uncared-for mansion where Mr Wintergarten lives. The children in the neighbourhood share very unfavourable stories about Mr Wintergarten with Rose and her sisters after she moves in. When Rose's ball ends up on the wrong side of the fence, Rose must face Mr Wintergarten if she is to get it back. When Rose finds the courage to face the infamous Wintergarten to ask for her ball back, we finally get to see what he's like in real-life. Is he as scary as Rose was led to believe, or is he just a lonely old man? This book is great for eliciting empathy in children, and the teaching and learning of both visual literacy and perspective.
Discussions, teachable moments and tasks within the classroom
Visual literacy
Discuss: before reading this text, start by looking at the wide shot showing the Summers family moving into their new house. Mr Wintergarten's house next door stands out. It is grey, looks like it's not been looked after and his garden looks even worse! Compare this with Rose's house. It's bright and the garden is well-maintained. Contrast this with the illustration at the end of the story taken from the same angle showing the people from the neighbourhood working together to tidy up Mr Wintergarten's house and garden, and highlight the fact that the fence between the two houses has been removed entirely.
Task: the 'Visible thinking' see-think-wonder routine is great for eliciting student thinking before getting in to the text. In small groups, students record what they see, think and wonder for both illustrations. Upon completion, the discussions that arise from students sharing their observations should be a great segue in to reading the text.
I used this text for explicitly teaching visual literacy elements such as gaze, reading path and salience.
Teach: readers use visuals in combination with words to make to make a multi-modal text. Bob Graham has used visuals and words together to add more meaning to the text. Understanding the visual literacy elements that authors and illustrators use helps us to get a better understanding of texts and makes us better readers. Salience refers to the element on the page that first grabs the readers attention. Reading path refers to how the author and the illustrator have manipulated words and pictures to draw the reader’s attention from one element to another. Gaze refers to what the character’s eyes are focusing on. For example, the salient element on the page might be Mr Wintergarten, and his gaze is directly focused on Rose. In this example, the reading path goes from Mr Wintergarten to Rose.
Task: identifying visual literacy elements. This can be done as three separate activities over the course of three lessons.
Part 1 - Students work in pairs to identify and label the taught visual literacy elements. TODO - prepare A4 colour print-outs of examples from the text;
Part 2 - Students choose one of the scenes to create a freeze-frame of one of the images, making sure that the visual literacy elements come through in the picture. TODO - model what a 'freeze-frame' looks like, and explain why these help us to get a better understanding of a text. Take photographs of the students' freeze-frames.
Part 3 - prepare A4 colour print-outs of the students' freeze-frames. Students are given another group's freeze-frames and they identify and label the visual literacy elements.
Emotions
I used this book as part of a teaching and learning of a unit on reading character emotions, which came about as a result of identifying this as a point of need for our cohort of students. Diving deeper into visual literacy, we looked at facial expressions and posture of characters, and positions of power in images. We also discussed the interplay of the words with the illustrations, and how they worked together to make meaning for the reader.
Task: students select an image (from a pre-defined selection) that are appropriate examples of an emotion or feeling. After identifying the visual elements that show the emotion they've identified, they describe this (written), and justify with evidence (visuals and words) from the text.
Perspective
Read up until just before Mr Wintergarten appears in the story for the first time.
Task: provide students with sentence starters for Rose and Mr Wintergarten -
Rose is a ___________ person. I think this because _______________.
Mr Wintergarten is a ______________ person. I think this because _______________.
Students complete these sentences.
Expect responses like 'Rose is a kind person. I think this because she brought fairy cakes for Mr Wintergarten' and 'Mr Wintergarten is a mean person. I think this because he eats kids'.
Discuss: Mr Wintergarten does not appear in the text until half-way through the story. Yet the reader and the other characters have formed opinions about him based on stories and persuasive techniques used by the author. These are things as simple as the characters' names - contrast Rose Summers with Mr Wintergarten and the contrast in colours between the Summers' side of the fence and Mr Wintergarten's side. Ask - Have we met Mr Wintergarten yet? We have not met this character yet but we have already formed opinions about him.
Teach: When the story is told through the perspective of one character, the readers' opinions of other characters can be formed by their perspective.
Teach: fact vs opinion. Define fact - a fact is something that can be proven with evidence. Define opinion - an opinion is somethings thinking, feelings or beliefs.
Task: students sort statements of fact and opinion sentences based on the text. Examples could be 'Rose lives next door to Mr Wintergarten', 'Mr Wintergarten is a mean person', 'Rose is kind', 'Mr Wintergarten has a dog', etc.
TODO - prepare fact and opinion statements.
For the next lesson, read the rest of the text, and then re-visit the sentences that students wrote previously for Rose and Mr Wintergarten. Students can re-write their sentences and compare their opinions of the characters.
Discuss: Rose's opinion of Mr Wintergarten changed after she actually met him. Ask - Did your opinion of Mr Wintergarten change? How?
Task: students write about how their opinions of the characters changed, and what happened to change their opinions.
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