. CBCA SHoRTLI Ted! 2020 SHORTLIST: EVE POWNALL AWARD FOR INFORMATION BOOKS

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ABOUT THE BOOK Yarra Riverkeeper Andrew Kelly joins award-winning picture book duo Aunty Joy Murphy and Lisa Kennedy to tell the Indigenous and geographical story of ’s beautiful Yarra River, from its source to its mouth, from its pre-history to the present day. For a list of Australian curriculum content able to be addressed through studying this text, see the full comprehensive set of teaching notes available online at: scholastic.com.au/teacher-corner TEACHING

WILAM: A BIRRARUNG STORY

WRITTEN BY AUNTY JOY MURPHY & ANDREW KELLY ILLUSTRATED BY LISA KENNEDY

AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL HERITAGE empowers people to look • Read together the glossary of the after their river Birrarung/ Yarra. words in the text and their English meanings. Allocate students The book begins with a quote from William • Research the idea of Caring for a word to illustrate as a poster using Barak, who was Aunty Joy Murphy’s great Country and its importance to Lisa’s artwork for inspiration. Label uncle. Auntie Joy is descended from and role in with both English and Woiwurrung Barak’s brother Robert Wandin. Barak looking after our environment. language. was ‘Wurundjeri Ngurungaeta’ or ‘head ENGLISH LANGUAGE & LITERACY man’ for much of the time of the early VISUAL LITERACY Cyclical Structure settlement of Melbourne and the Yarra Aboriginal artists use repetitive patterns Valley. He is the ancestral figure who This is a cyclical story about the past when they are building a structure with guides the Elders in passing on culture. (heritage), present (welcome) and future symbols repeated across the painting to

• In pairs, research William Barak and (regeneration), though the river flows create a kind of network. NOTES and write a report. only in one direction from the beginning of the book. How are these ideas • Research and identify symbols or and Waa reflected in the written and visual text? iconography in this text. There are two descent lines (or moieties) Does the idea of the book being a single • Invite an Indigenous artist to in the Wurundjeri-Woiwurrung—Bunjil day from dawn to dusk reflect this? demonstrate the use of such symbols. and Waa. Bunjil is the wedge-tailed eagle Style and Use of Language • Invite students to tell a story visually and the creator spirit. Waa, the raven, is using these symbols. not only the guardian of the waterways Different languages have different • The Wurundjeri-Woiwurrung, and but the discoverer of fire. He is a trickster structures. Woiwurrung does not use the other indigenous Australians, are figure. He stole the secret of the fire word ‘the’. As part of the writing process well known for their incised patterns, from the Karatgurk (in the English ‘the’ was removed before the Woiwurrung often used in carving artefacts and on tradition the Pleiades). In doing so he words. This gave the text a mythic timeless trees, message sticks, totem poles and burnt his feathers black. quality. Plurals are not as frequently used in Woiwurrung as in English, and implements and weapons. • Explore other First Nation people’s sometimes plurals are written by doubling • Identify patterns in the book that could creator spirits. Compare their the word in Woiwurrung. In the writing of have been used in carvings. Create an differences and similarities to Bunjil. the book the plurals were taken off the artefact using these patterns. • Explore other stories from other endings of Woiwurrung words. ‘Wallert’ GEOGRAPHY indigenous Australian groups around instead ‘Wallerts’. Australia, and from other traditions Conduct an enquiry-based unit of work around the world. Compare their • Rewrite a page of the book adding on aspects of geography that are revealed differences and similarities to Waa. ‘the’ before the Woiwurrung words and in this book: the significance of the Yarra then read it aloud. How does it sound River to Wurundjeri culture; plants and Indigenous Australian Relations compared to the original text? Now animals that appear in the visual text; to Rivers add the English plural ‘s’ to the end of tributaries on the Yarra; the catchment The Yarra River Protection (Willipgin the Woiwurrung words. Read it aloud of the Yarra/Birrarung; the artwork Birrarung murron) Act 2017 emphasises again. How does it sound compared at Birrarung Marr; different sorts of bringing Indigenous Australian ‘Caring to the original text and the previous estuaries and their importance; the for Country’ into an urban setting and rewritten version? special adaptations of mangroves.