Constructions and representations of disasters

Today I am sharing something that has perplexed me for some years.  I do not have the answers, but I do have the wonderings...

Adventures in Thinking: creative thinking & co-operative talk in small groups by Joan Dalton was published in 1985.  For a pre-service teacher in her final year of study, it was an influential text that was published to support the development of creative and critical thinking, problem-solving, questioning and co-operative learning groups.


Dalton (1985) ascribes the artwork throughout the book to eight-year-old Yuri Chlebnikowski.  One page which has stuck with me for over thirty years is the introductory page to the section on creative thinking about disasters. 

What struck me about this page, is that when I think of 'disasters', I think of fire, famine and flood, amongst others.  The images on this page in the book, however, represent disasters in quite specific and different ways.  I started thinking (which is the purpose of the book, to inspire thinking, and often we don't have the answers to our own questions and ponderings, which is one of the reasons why encouraging children to share their own thinking is so powerful)...
Why did young Yuri, at eight years of age, represent 'disasters' with high-rise buildings, aircraft and parachutes?  

Let's contextualise this...The book was published in 1985 by Thomas Nelson Australia, in South Melbourne, Victoria. The events of September 11 were some twenty-six years later, after the book's date of publication.  Australia had no history of events such as 9/11, so why did young Yuri, at eight years of age, represent 'Disasters' in this way?  We certainly had a history in Australia of natural disasters, including fires, floods, cyclones, etc. but young Yuri's images depict man-made disasters, perhaps of imagined terrorist intent, and possibly pre-emptive of future world events.

I decided to research where young Yuri may be now, thirty-two years later, as a forty-year-old man.  I imagined that 'Yuri Chlebnikowski' would not be a common name, so I commenced my search. I found one website that attributed a Yuri Chlebnikowski to graphic design work in relation to Nick Chlebnikowski's fractal paintings.  Another, dated 2000, cited a 'Yuri Chlebnikowski' as an artist and graphic designer.  That would fit with the possible future of a young eight year old whose artworks were selected to be included in Joan Dalton's popular teacher professional development text.

I found another website with the suggestion that Yuri could be the son of Nick, a talented and well-known wine merchant, architect and artist from Melbourne, Victoria.  There was also the suggestion on another website that Yuri may have been Nick's grandson, now involved in running the family's liquor enterprise, Nicks Wine Merchants, in Doncaster, Victoria.  

Whether Yuri, is the son or grandson of Nick Chlebnikowski is unknown by me, however, what remains is the question of why Yuri represented disasters the way he did, as man-made constructions, in his illustrations as an eight-year-old Australian boy?  Why didn't he represent 'disasters' as Australian natural disasters such as bushfires, floods, cyclones, droughts etc?  Why did he choose to represent the concept of 'disasters' as involving aircraft and high-rise buildings?  

Was the author of the book, Joan Dalton, aware of this visual construction of 'disasters' and did it align to the content within that chapter?  Was young Yuri instructed or guided about what to draw on this title page to this section of the overall text?

The chapter on Disasters in the book, Adventures in Thinking, includes topics such as explosions, an escaped gorilla, equipment used in an emergency, fire at school, starving families, chaos at Melbourne airport, a disaster-proof home, bushfires, floods, cyclones, disease, war, drought, State Emergency Services, crime, a radiation leak at a city nuclear power station in the year 2000...but nothing suggesting a terror attack or planes flying into buildings as representations of disaster.

I don't have the answers, but the questions have been bubbling away now for over thirty years...and they probably still will...This is just one small example of the power of the visual text, over thirty years later!

I would love to hear from Joan or Yuri if they read this post :)

From "Rain Dance" to "Flood"

My previous post introduced the book, "Downpour".  You can read that post in my November blog post archive (right hand side of the blog - scroll down).

Our Summer storms are continuing in Queensland and there are two other picture books I am really enjoying.  The first is called, "Rain Dance" by Cathy Applegate and Dee Huxley (2000).  Set in the Australian outback, this is a beautiful picture book that brings to life the importance of rain to outback communities and the impact of drought.  You can almost smell and feel the rain as it hits the parched earth in the outback.  Dee Huxley's illustrations capture the terrain and colours of the outback so well.  The author's text provides a visual image to support the illustrations (e.g. "Beyond our desolate farm I can see the horizon where a few dark clouds cruelly taunt us with promises of rain".)  This would be a great mentor text for exploring descriptive and figurative language.

Teaching notes for teaching visual literacy using "Rain Dance" and other texts are available in the publication on the right.  A free download of the contents page that shows the picture books examined is available by clicking on that image and then the link to see sample pages.  There is a chapter in the book on the right on "In Flanders Fields" (by Norman Jorgenson and Brian Harrison-Lever) which is set in World War 1.

 A companion text for "Rain Dance" is an Australian indigenous picture book, "Big Rain Coming" by Katrina Germein and one of my favourite indigenous illustrators, Bronwyn Bancroft.  You can view a youtube reading of this title here or download teaching ideas here.  This story is set in Katherine in the Northern Territory of Australia when people were experiencing severe drought and the anticipation of rain. Other teaching notes are available here.  

 These Australian indigenous titles about the importance of rain and the anticipation of rain could be compared and contrasted to picture books from other cultures with a similar theme, for example, "Sing Down the Rain" (1977) which is a poem about the annual Tohono O'odham saguaro harvest and rain-making ceremony.  More information about this cultural ceremony can be read via the Southwest Cross-Cultural Wisdom Circle page.  A choral reading script for this text is available here. 

It would be interesting to compare and contrast the animals mentioned in "Rain Dance" and also in "Sing Down the Rain" as the latter mentions ciquadas, however in Australia we have cicadas - I am wondering if they are the same thing?  Both texts also mention events and characters specific to the different cultures and contexts.  

Another terrific picture book I have discovered recently is "The Rain Train" by Elena de Roo and Brian Lovelock (2010).  This is a fantastic picture book for exploring onomatopoeia.  You can almost hear and feel the rain as you read this picture book that tells the story of a train ride when the rain is pouring down.  You can almost feel the drizzle and chill through the illustrations.  Both the author and illustrator live in New Zealand.

 

Sometimes people live through droughts, wishing for rain and sometimes people experience too much rain and flooding.  In the past two years, people in South-East Queensland have experienced flash flooding and the devastation of flood waters. 

Two picture books that contrast representations of the experience of the Brisbane floods in January 2011 are Jackie French's "Flood" (illustrated by Bruce Whatley) and "Alex and the Watermelon Boat" by Chris McKimmie.  Both represent the events in different ways.  Figurative language could be explored using "Flood".  Caution needs to be taken, however, when sharing these picture books with students from the communities affected, as it may actually foster memories of loss and grief, so teacher judgement (as always) would need to be exercised.  Jackie French discusses "Flood" and how to handle some of these concerns here including students' positive reactions to the picture book ,which represents communities pulling together, survival and heroism.  The illustrations certainly bring back memories of the drench, the mud and the generosity of the thousands of volunteers (the "Mud Army").

From a critical literacy stance, I think it is far more powerful to compare and contrast how authors and illustrators represent the same event in different ways, through multiple texts, rather than just focusing on the study of representation of a single text.

 

Free teacher notes for "Flood" are available here through Scholastic or here through the Primary English Teaching Association Australia (which is an excellent organisation to be a member of if you aren't already - and no, they didn't pay me to say that!).   You can also view a youtube reading of "Flood" here.   

Free teaching notes for "Alex and the Watermelon Boat" are available here and teacher reviews are available here.

Please leave a comment if you know of any other texts that could be included in this text set, or if you have used any of the books mentioned in this blog post.

Now...next weekend is another huge giveaway of freebies from my friends who participated in the Super Sleuths blog hop last month...mark this in your diaries...my clip art has come and I am so excited about using it...so next weekend...don't miss "The Gift of Reading Blog Hop."

Many thanks