Skip to main content

Heywire: Autobiography of a flood survivor

Posted 
Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.
road sign beside laying water, sign text reads "Water over road"
Heywire: Autobiography of a flood survivor

SUBJECTS:  English

YEARS:  7–8


Imagine if the town or suburb you live in came under threat due to a natural disaster. How would you react?

Shelby Garlick from Kerang, Victoria, was a finalist of the 2012 Heywire storytelling competition for young people.

Listen to her inspiring story and explore the lessons she learnt as a result of working with her family and community to save her town.


Things to think about

  1. 1.What is an autobiography? Why do you think people are interested in these types of stories? Use an image search on the internet to find pictures of the Kerang floods of 2011. Select one or more images as inspiration and write a brief description of the devastation.
  2. 2.What should everyone have been doing during the summer holidays? What happened instead? How does Shelby describe the rain? How did everyone react to the evacuation order? Why did the family return to Kerang? Describe the work of building the levees. What image is created of the town after the floods arrive? What was one negative consequence of the levees?
  3. 3.Effective description draws on our senses. Which senses do Shelby's descriptions include? What effect does this have on the listener? How does Shelby create an image of Kerang being isolated by the flood? What does the image of everyone building the levee together symbolise? What makes Shelby realise that she actually loves Kerang? What theme does Shelby develop in this autobiographical story?
  4. 4.Shelby feels guilty because the levees flooded neighbouring farms while saving the town. How might a farmer have felt about this? Imagine you are a farmer and recount your version of this story. Use effective description and symbolism to add impact. Select a famous person in whom you are interested. Find an autobiography of their life to read and enjoy.



Date of broadcast: 12 Dec 2012


Copyright

Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Posted