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ASH ROAD Ivan Southall

This unit features Ash Road by Ivan Southall. (It is the story of children bereft of the support of adults coping in a disaster. In Ash Road a bushfire threatens a group of frightened children and adults) although today it would be regarded as teen fiction (even adult fiction) It was a popular, and even award winning children’s novel when originally written in the early 60s. it portrays, as only Ivan Southall could, not only the detailed setting of the period but also the idiosyncratic nature of early 60s Australia and the struggles faced by coming-of age youth at the time. This unit would also fit in well with a bushfire/fire safety/disaster theme and should last 3-4 weeks. (Also refer to Hills End by the same author)

A Blooms Taxonomy literature unit

T. Shaw

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Ivan Southall

Ivan Southall was born in Melbourne, Victoria. At the age of fourteen he finished his schooling. He gained work at the Melbourne Herald, and was there for four years prior to 1942 when he enlisted in the RAAF. 1942 also saw the publication of Southall's first work, a collection of short stories for adults. In 1944 he was sent to England where he served in the Coastal Command and won the DFC. He was subsequently transferred to the historical department as a writer at the RAAF headquarters in London. He returned to Melbourne in 1946 and found employment as a photo-engraver. In 1947 he resigned from this position in order to devote more time to his writing. He has been, for several years, one of Australia's most celebrated authors in the field of children's novels and non-fiction – his writings have been produced in numerous countries and issued in various languages. A selection of his lectures on writing for children was published in 1975 and, in the same year, Let the Balloon Go was made into a film. He has also written a substantial amount of fiction and non-fiction for the adult reader, much of his work has its origins in his wartime period.

Southall is the recipient of many awards in Australia and Europe. They include: the 1966 and 1968 Children's Book of the Year Awards; the 1969 Picture Book of the Year Award; the 1971 British Library Association Carnegie Medal; 1971 Children's Book of the Year Award; the 1972 Zilver Griffell of Holland; the 1974 Australian Writers Award; the 1976 Children's Book of the Year Award; and the 1988 USA Child Study Book of the Year. In 1981 he was awarded the AM for services to literature. Ivan died in 2008.

From the State Library site: http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/slv/exhibitions/southall/essay.html

(Also contains tributes and an excellent interview.)

Ivan Southall’s papers can be found at this site: http://www.nla.gov.au/ms/findaids/5379.html

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Tribute to the Simon Black books: http://www.penrithcity.nsw.gov.au/usrpages/collect/simon.htm

http://www.collectingbooksandmagazines.com/ivansouthall.html http://www.scholastic.com.au/common/dromkeen/pdf/medal_recipient2003.pdf http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2008/2422702.htm (audio interview with the author)

About Ash Road Ash Road is a book about three young boys who accidentally set a fire in the outback during the drought season. The fire quickly escalates to dramatic proportions endangering many towns, farms, and lives and a group of young children come together in a time of danger to help save each others’ lives and properties. The reader is instantly drawn into the story by the vivid descriptions of the burning forests, horrifying smells, and terrible heat. The fire is out of control and the fire fighters have no choice but to let it run its course. I would highly recommend this book to readers 12+. Its underlying themes include tragedy, loss, relationships, and death with the realization that life is not a permanent thing that should ever be taken for granted. Southall does an excellent job of putting the reader in the middle of the dramatic storyline and evoking strong feelings, especially when the children have to scramble for safety and do whatever they can to salvage what they have left including their lives. In 1966 Ash Road won the Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book of the Year Award. (Ash Road is currently in print, Hills End will be in most school libraries and can be bought through Amazon)

Activities

(Page numbers refer to the 2004 Front Street paperback) Remembering (Locating / retrieving knowledge)

Sequence events from the story in the correct order.

Answer true or false questions about the story.

Complete a wordsearch and crossword based on the story.

List the main characters and their attributes and appearance.(Graham, Wallace and Harry page 11-12)

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Create a poster advertising the book. On your poster provide a synopsis of the story.

List the type or chores that the some of the children in the story would be expected to do. In contrast what is a typical day for you like.

Write 5 quiz questions about the story.

Complete a cloze activity based on the story.

Complete a reading comprehension activity.

Make your own mini-reader based on the story. Compile it as we are reading the serial. Include all relevant information.

Understanding (Paraphrasing, categorising, extrapolating)

Create a display in the library of books of classic Australian children’s books from the 1960s-70s.

Write one of the events from the story as a scene in a short play (for 2 to 4 people) Act it out. (Consider making it a puppet play.)

Complete a Cause and Effect Chart.

Use a Venn diagram to compare one of the characters at the start of the story and at the end.

Make a cartoon of an episode from the story. (i.e. The boys accidentally starting the fire.)

Create a KWL about bushfires

Complete a PowerPoint project on bushfires

Create a DVD cover for the story and explain your views and reactions to the story as if you were a film reviewer.

Complete a ‘Y Chart’ on the scene at the Georges raspberry farm.

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Applying (Applying knowledge)

Create a wordsearch or word activity on Puzzlemaker about the Black Friday bushfires.

Create a travel brochure on Publisher about Ash Road.

Draw a story map and timeline of the Tinley area.

Make a diorama for a scene from the story.

Write an acrostic poem about one of the characters from the story or the story title.

Make a game board about the story.

Write a newspaper account about the fire and its aftermath.

Write a letter from one of the characters to a friend in the city describing the impact of the fires.

Write a ‘care for’ pamphlet for growing raspberries.

Create four black and white illustrations for the 4 most important events from one of the stories. (You choose them.)

Make a list of items you would take with you if you were going to live at an unknown relative’s house. (Just the essentials)

Analyse (Distinguishing relevant from irrelevant, determining points of view and how elements fit and function within a structure)

Compare the relationship between the characters and their surroundings.

Develop a matrix comparing Ash Road to other disaster stories.

Complete a character analysis of one of the main characters. (Start with a simple web for Peter)

What is the theme for Ash Road? Is there a moral you can find? Can you recognise any of the characters from your own life?

Are there gaps in the story? What isn’t told? Design a poster for the library illuminating one of the ‘gaps’ in the story.

Select parts of the story that were the funniest, saddest, happiest and most unbelievable. (Compare them with those determined by other students)

In what ways do the children in the story support each other in this story? Provide examples of how they helped each other.

Children create a school report card for one of the children.

Identify the main plot of the story and at least 2 sub-plots.

Evaluating (Checking and critiquing)

How could certain situations be handled differently than in the story?

Who would you be best friends with? Why?

Write a critical review of the story on an alternative book cover with an illustration of what you believe is the most important episode from the story.

Using De bono’s six hats (http://cispom.boisestate.edu/murli/cps/sixhats.html discuss what Grandpa Tanner and Julie do as the fire approaches them.

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Decide on whether the three boys should be arrested as arsonists. Make a wanted poster saying why you made your decision and providing proof to back yourself up.

Create (generating, planning and producing)

Write an additional chapter / alternative ending for the story.

Create a police report about the origins of the fire.

Create a missing persons poster for the 3 boys.

Create a model of a destroyed farmhouse

Develop a book report about the story using a format of your own, which we can put on the school’s web site.

Create your own ‘Ash Road’ PowerPoint presentation. Children will recall elements of the story (characters, problem, solution and events) on slides. The PowerPoint should consist of 5 slides:

The title Character slide (listing the important characters, facts about them and a

picture) The problem (Describe the major problems faced by the characters. Solution (Describe the solution to the problem) Summary (A summary of the story)

War experiences defined children's author

Ivan Southall, 1921 – 2008 (SMH obit)

TOLD last month that he had only a short time to live, Ivan Southall replied: "I survived the war. I was given a life denied to many young men and I am grateful for that life." In his last conscious days, most of what he had to say was about his RAAF service.

Many Australians will remember Southall as a writer, particularly of children's books, but it was his war experiences that defined and defied him. His distinguished career as an author began during World War II, and "the dragging fears of war were always somewhere inside". For all his life he mourned friends and family members killed in action.

Ivan Francis Southall, who has died at 87, was born in Melbourne, the older son of Francis (Frank) Southall and his wife, formerly Rachel (Bessie) Voutier. Frank, once a home missionary in Jeparit, worked for an insurance company after failing to become a Presbyterian minister. Ivan and his younger brother, Gordon, enjoyed a happy childhood in

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Surrey Hills, much of it associated with the Methodist Church. If Southall were to claim any serious literary foundation, it had to be the influence of the King James Bible, absorbed during after-dinner readings or in church.

Educated at state schools and briefly at Box Hill Grammar, his first published story appeared in 1933 in the children's page of the Melbourne Herald, where Southall began his apprenticeship as a process engraver in 1937. He had to leave school at 14 to work after his father died in 1935. He wanted to be a journalist and wrote stories persistently, including Full Throttle For Fortune, the incipient manuscript for Simon Black in the 1950s.

The hero of the Simon Black series for children was largely created from a childhood desire to fly. Southall's hero had been Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, and the day the aviator flew over Melbourne was a great day for Ivan. When Kingsford Smith died, he felt he had lost a member of his family.

During World War II Southall commanded a Short Sunderland flying boat at No. 461 Squadron, Pembroke Dock, Wales. Captain Southall was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1944 and spent the rest of the war in London at RAAF overseas headquarters, working in the history section. After the war he wrote They Shall Not Pass Unseen, the squadron's history. A version for children, Fly West, won the Children's Book of the Year Award in 1976. His book about the work of mine disposal experts, Softly Tread The Brave, was also adapted for younger readers, as Seventeen Seconds.

http://www.watoday.com.au/national/loved-childrens-writer-loses-fight-with-cancer-20081116-67uu.html and http://www.theage.com.au/national/vivid-writer-of-adventure-books-for-children-20081116-684j.html NOTE: Bushfire images are in the Public Domain

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ASH ROAD (Page 1-59) CAUSE REACTION/EFFECT

The boys were

spotted lighting

a camp fire by a

passing woman.

(p 13)

Graham woke up

feeling hot and

thirsty. (p 19)

Julie couldn’t turn

off the tap (p. 28)

John could smell

smoke as he

worked to pick the

raspberry crop (p

38)

Stevie ran off to

see the fire (p.49)

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ASH ROAD Comic

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Comic sample

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TINLEY TIMES

10c January 13th 1965

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ASH ROAD Read these quotes from the story (Pages 60- 104) and

attribute them to the right character. Choose from these characters- Pippa, Peter, Lorna, Graham, Wallace, Julie

I’m thirteen, I’m not a baby any more. I want to stay.

(Page 65)

Will I give myself up? It will be so much easier if I do. (Page 86)

But I live on a farm. I’m way near the end of a

road. I’m three miles from the township. It’s a

quarter of a mile to the nearest neighbours,

and even they’re on holidays. I’m all alone.

There isn’t anybody anywhere! (Page 76)

You wouldn’t leave me. You couldn’t do that. He’s down in the paddock, out in the sun. Can’t you even carry him up to the house for me? (Page 79)

Don’t cry Pippa. Please don’t cry Pippa. I’m sorry I didn’t mean to frighten you. (Page 72)

Julie’s a bad, wicked girl. I’ve been half out of my mind. I thought she was lost in the bush, and she’s here. What’s she doing here? (Page 63)

My brother’s a firefighter and he’s fighting the fires now! If he was here he’d punch you in the nose. You’re not firefighters. You’re just nothing. Get off my father’s property before I set the dog on you. (Page 89)

He didn’t do any such thing. It was my fault, and Graham’s. It didn’t have anythin’ to do with Harry. Harry was asleep. (Page 97)

Look, look, look, Grandpa, look at the helipopter!

(Page 104)

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ASH ROAD

Most books have a main plot and a few sub-plots. The sub-plots are the little story lines that go on in the background of the main story. As we read the book pick out the main plot and at least 2 sub-plots.

MAIN PLOT

SUB PLOT SUB PLOT

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ASH ROAD (Missing person’s poster or wanted poster)

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ASH ROAD

Venn Diagram

Peter at the start of the story

Peter at the end of the story

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ASH ROAD ‘Y’ Chart

What would you feel?

What would you hear?

What would you see?

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ASH ROAD

Alternative Book cover

Also consider a DVD cover with a personal review

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ASH ROAD Postcard Write a postcard by Peter to his parents telling them about his adventures in the bushfire. (Does he tell the whole story? Refer page 145-146)

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ASH ROAD Cloze activity (From page 170 and 178)

“I’m staying with you” he called down to her. “I’m here. When the fire’s 1…………………. They’ll find Grandpa and then 2………………. Find you. It might take some time, little darling, the night might come and then the sun might 3…………… up again, but they’ll 4………………… you. Don’t cry, or you won’t 5…………….. them when they come. Shout out 6……………………, won’t you? When you hear them come, you sing out: “Here I am, 7……………………………….. . Down the well, safe and sound”. Grandpa 8…………………. Put his pipe down on his tree 9…………. and poured a bucket of water over 10………………………, and called down the well, “I’m still here, little darling. Grandpa’s going to make it 11………………. Now. And remember what grandpa said. When you hear them come 12………………….. out loud, as loud as you can, ‘Here I am, everybody. Down the well safe and sound’.”

With difficulty, for the wind was troublesome, he slid two 13…………… of corrugated iron across the top of the well and weighted them down with heavy 14……………., and painted on the iron with black enamel paint: Children Here. Then he curled up on the leeward side of the stump, drew a wet 15………………….. blanket over himself, and bit very hard on the stem of his 16……………. .

ASH ROAD Reading Comprehension extract (page 129-130 scanned)

Choose from:

Pipe rocks woollen shout sheets

Tanner himself dark stump over

everybody loud hear come find

they’ll

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ASH ROAD Reading Comprehension

From page 129

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Reading Comprehension questions

Remember (Locating / retrieving knowledge) 1. On what street were they driving down?

2. Who were directing the traffic?

3. What town were they in?

Understand (Paraphrasing, categorising, extrapolating) 1. Draw what the children could see through the windscreen as they

drove slowly down Main Street.

2. Use 3 describing words to describe the scene that the Harry and Wallace saw.

3. Why do the children ‘shrink into invisibility’ when Gramps shouted at the police?

4. What analogy tells you that the fire is very dangerous?

Apply (Applying knowledge) 1. Why were vehicles carrying drums of water, knapsack sprays and

piles of wet hessian?

2. List 5 essential items you would take with you if you had to evacuate from a bushfire.

Analyse (Distinguishing relevant from irrelevant, determining points of view and how elements fit and function within a structure)

1. What do you think Grandpa is thinking and feeling at this point in the story? What are the 2 children thinking and feeling?

Evaluating (Checking and critiquing)

1. Do you approve of Grandpa’s actions so far in the story? Would you have behaved differently?

Create (generating, planning and producing)

1. Design a special ‘official’ pass that Grandpa could have used to help him get through the crowded street

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ASH ROAD WORDSEARCH

E Q S U L R D T M Q T O H U C

V G U L Y G A A I A A Z A G I

A F E H D D L S O N P I R N N

C W I P F R C J P R L Z R I A

U L A V I V R U S B H E Y P P

A K A I I A E L Q T E S Y M X

T N I F Z C E I L U J R A A F

I S B Y A Z T B D E H J R C B

O P R L E T U G Y P F J K Y O

N I L J Q S K F E S U R N P S

B A F E H G E T S U C W U W C

W E B F R A E K V K F Z G E W

H V I D A R B E O J Z O Q M J

L R G R A H A M F M I I M R O

E I M R T G I P S I S M G V W

ASH ROAD BUSHFIRE CAMPING EVACUATION GRAHAM HARRY JULIE PANIC PETER RASPBERRYS SMOKE SURVIVAL TINLEY WALLACE WELL

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ASH ROAD CROSSWORD

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Across 3. Lorna's father grew this fruit but the heat was killing his crop…………………………..s 5. "There is a 200 pound ....... for lighting a fire in the open on a day like this." said the woman to the 3 boys. 6. Peter was very fond of ........ 9. Julie ran away to hide after she flooded the house as she didn't want to get into .......... 10. Pippa found ........ in Julies room stroking the cat. (page 163) 11. Lorna and Graham took shelter in the ......... patch. 13. He started the fire when he woke up to make coffee. Down 1. The town near where the children were camping. 2. Grandpa Tanner put Julie down the ..... for safety. 4. The police ordered the ...........of over 60 families in the path of the bushfires ) page 67) 7. Lorna couldn't ........ her father's car. 8. Grandpa Tanner had survived 2 previous ............ in 1913 and 1939. 11. the 3 boys went ............ on the holidays in the bush. 12. He drove the car with Lorna's dad lying on the back seat. 14. It was raining ...... (page 113)

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ASH ROAD STORY MAP (Enlarge to A3)

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ASH ROAD

Bushfire KWL

K W L

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ASH ROAD

Simple Web character analysis

PETER

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ASH ROAD What should Grandpa do?

Grandpa was in a difficult situation with Julie and the Robertson baby by himself with a bushfire bearing down on him! What should he do (From page 168) Use DeBono’s thinking hats to come up with some ideas.

WHITE HAT Describe Grandpa Tanner’s situation YELLOW HAT What are the positives of Grandpa’s situation (Ask yourself, could it be worse? RED HAT What are Grandpa’s feelings when he finds himself alone with 2 infant children and a bushfire bearing down on him. BLACK HAT What does Grandpa now need to be cautious about? What is essential for his survival? GREEN HAT Think of an unusual way in which Grandpa could save himself and the children. (Ash road was written in 1965. How would things be different today?) BLUE HAT After examining his predicament, list 3 actions Grandpa should take to save himself and the children.

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WHITE

YELLOW

RED

BLACK

GREEN

BLUE

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ASH ROAD (Categorising episodes from the story)

Funniest Saddest unbelievable

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ASH ROAD Ivan Southall uses many rich Australian expressions in his work to describe the feelings of his characters such as: Pippa was in a ‘muddle of misery’ (page 68) Peter had a strained and ‘hangdog’ look (page 70) Match up theses Australian expressions/slang words with their meanings by color coding them. Research 10 of your own and create a similar chart as this for others to try and solve.

whinge food tucker sausage petrol biscuits snag Swimming trunks scones Cup of tea arvo gasoline bathers a group of men Billy can (page 12) Australian soldier Blokes (page 87) complain cuppa Very happy digger mosquito Happy as Larry chicken lollies French fries mozzie alcohol nappy Australian rules football chook afternoon chips candy grog diaper footy Metal can to boil tea in

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BUSHFIRE PICTURES

In real life

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Senses poem for bushfires

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Sample senses poems

Australian theme display (Ash Road and Gary Crew – also on TPT)

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Fire stories (early years’ students) Alternative cover art

Bushfire scenes

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Story maps

Comics

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