1. When and where was this image created?

2.  What is happening in this image?

3. What specific people/objects do you see? 

4. What do you notice about the object's condition or the people's expressions or appearance?

5. Why would the person choose this particular scene to capture?

6. What information do the words accompanying the image provide?

7. What is missing from the image?

8. What problems for people are suggested by the images?

9.  What is interesting or surprising about this image?

10. What additional information about the event did you learn from  this image?
 
 

Personal Account Analysis:

1. When and where did this interview take place?

2. What encounter with nature is described in this personal account?

3. How long after the event occurred was this inteview made?

4. What words or phrases best create a visual image of the event?

5. What attitude towards this event does the person seem to have?

6. Who or what at does this person seem to believe is responsible for this event occurring?

7. What problems or effects does the event seem to have had on people's lives?

8.  What lesson does this person seem to have learned from this event?

9. Is there anything interesting or surprising to you about this person's reaction to the situation?

10. What new insights into the natural event does this interview provide you?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

1. If there is a cover to this piece of sheet music, examine it carefully.  What message does the cover give you about the event?

2. What natural event is this song about?

3. Read through the lyrics. Write a  summary describing the main idea of the song.

4. List any words in the song with which you are not familiar. Find their meanings in a dictionary.

5. Choose one or two phrases of the song that are interesting to you. Explain why they caught your attention.

6. Who or what does the song writer feel is responsible for the event?

7. What problems or effects of the event are mentioned in the song?

8. What new insights does this song give you about the event described?

9. What surprises you about the song?

10. What questions do you have?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

  1. What additional information
  about the event did the other sources provide? 
 

Farmer and sons walking in the face of a dust storm. Cimarron County, Oklahoma.

America from the Great Depression to World War II: Black-and-White Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935-1945, Library of Congress

Personal Account:

Interview about dust storms in Oklahoma

Performer(s)/Interviewee(s)
Robertson, Mrs. Flora

We looked in the north and thought it was a blue 'norther a 'comin. Such a huge black cloud just looked like a smoke out of a train stack or something. 

(This was about what time?)

About four o'clock, nineteen hundred and thirty four.
And, ah, it just came a rollin over and when it got nearer to the house we was all afriad and we ran into the storm celler because we thought it was a storm. And we lit the lamp and it was just so dark in there that we couldn't see one another. We just had, even with the lamp lit, and we just choked and smothered. And my husband was out after the cows and he stumbled up against the barbed wire fence and he followed the fence 'til he come to the house. That was the way he was able to get to the house. And we had to tie wet rags over our mouths.  And just to keep from smothering, we'd dip cloths into buckets of cold water and tie it over our mouths down the cellar. And that one lasted so fierce for about two hours and then we took courage and seeing we wasn't going to blow away and went in the house and we wet blankets and hung over the windows. And then after the first one, of course, we were scared awfully bad. And the old timers said they'd never seen nothing like that. 

Our house was sealed but that dust come through somehow. Even those stucco houses by all around the doors and the windows. The dust would be all piled so high and you just had to mop real good when it was over to get it out. You couldn't get it out no other way.

(How long did it last?)

Well, sometimes a real bad one would last for a half a day. Sometimes it would be a week before we would see the sun. It was just dark. And sometimes the sod would look black. Sometimes it would look red. It was according to which way the wind comes whether it was the red dust that was blowing or the black dirt or according to the way that the storm would come.

And we had cattle. We had cows taht we gave sixty dollars and some ninty dollars in dear old money. And it killed them that was out in that. And we would cut their lungs open and it would look just like a mud pack or soemthing. And it just really showed it was the mud.

(First you had the flood, then the grasshoppers, and then the dust storms?)

Yes. And we waited. It was about five years before we just really give up. But every year we'd begin going back. And such a, in debt so much we thought we never could get out.

(I think you would want to come to California.)

Well, you get afraid to stay in that. There's too many have dust pneumonia and dying. And it kills too many people.

(And that's when you wrote that little poem about the dust storm? Could we hear that? Would you mind reading it to us?)

Well, I'll try but I don't know how good it is.

I came to Oklahoma before it was a state.
Among the shining hills, I roamed from morn to late.
We were happy, healthy people, proud to live in that state.

One dark, gloomy day, what a sight we did see.
A thick smothering dust cloud spread over the prairie.
Killed many poeple and almost smothered me.

We waited and hoped almost five years through.
More people and cattle died. More dust storms come too.
Then we decided something we had better do.

We loaded a few things into an old car.
Hoping west to go very far.
We landed at the government camp on a flat tire.

So tired and hungry, hearts thick and dirty too.
Here we found food and shelter, too.
The California people sure are good to you.

In tents we are camped like Abram of old.
Thank God for a country and a land's that free.
We're so glad our flag's the red, white and blue.
 
 

To hear this personal account, click here.
 
 

Source document.

 A Traveler's Line

Composer/Author
Mrs. Mary Sullivan
Performer(s)/Interviewee(s)
Sullivan, Mrs. Mary
 

As I was walking one morning
I spied a man old and gray,
A story to share with someone
So these words to me he did say.

For two long years now I have wandered
Away from loved ones at home.
It seemed that starvation was on us
And then we decided to roam.

At first we camped out on the prairie,
Then state to state we did try
To find work enough for provisions
But it seemed there was no use to try.

I finally wound up in a chapter
In an FSA camp by the way.
A man walked up and told me
You can sign for a grant check today.

Then groceries brought in by the armfuls
The children no longer did sigh.
The camp's such a nice place to live in
The manager so nice in reply.

So now you all heard my sad story,
And how we first ventured out.
The welfare will clothe all your families,
When you stop in a farm workers' camp.

Source document

Nature's Fury web pages published and maintained by P. Solfest and K. Wardean
E-mail comments welcome at:
psolfest@altoona.k12.wi.us
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