Reading for Girl, Trapped in Water for 55 Hours,

Information Dies Despite Rescue Attempts

News Article

and of Clay
are we Created
Isabel Allende
What’s the Connection?
They discovered the girl’s head protruding

vast cemetery where the odor of death

far away, and where the weeping of orphans
air, the little girl obstinately clinging to
The television cameras transmitted so
from the mud pit, eyes wide open,
name,1 Azucena. Lily. In that
calling soundlessly. She had a First Communion attracting vultures from
was already
2

and wails of the injured filled the

life became the symbol of the tragedy.
often the unbearable image of the head
Study the painting.
How do you interpret
the girl’s expression?
Often, fiction writers discover ideas for stories in real events. Isabel
clay that there was no one who did not
budding like a black squash from the
And every tim1e we saw her on the screen,

Allende based her short story “And of Clay Are We Created” on actual
recognize her and know her name. 3 had gone there on assignment, never
right behind her was Rolf Carlé, who
of his past, lost thirty years before.
10 suspecting that he would find a fragment curling them like waves a a AUTHOR’S
4
sob rocked the cotton fields,
First a subterranean 5
weeks before and knew PERSPECTIVE
of foam. Geologists had set up their seismographs time they had predicted Think about Allende’s
For some
that the mountain had awakened again. former job as a journalist.
the eternal ice from the slopes of How is her background
that the heat of the eruption could detach of
warnings; they sounded like the tales reflected in the following
the volcano, but no one heeded their
the valley went about their daily life, deaf paragraph? Cite specific
frightened old women. The towns in details to support your
fateful Wednesday night in November
to the moaning of the earth, until that answers.

news accounts about a girl trapped in floodwater after a volcano

end of the world, and walls of snow
when a prolonged roar announced the
clay, stones, and water that descended
broke loose, rolling in an avalanche of telluric6
20 on the villages and buried
them beneath unfathomable meters of
from the paralysis of that first awful
vomit. As soon as the survivors emerged white cotton plantations,
that houses, plazas, churches,
terror, they could see
had disappeared. Much later, after
dark coffee forests, cattle pastures—all
rescue the living and try to assess the
soldiers and volunteers had arrived to

child at the time

traditionally given to a Roman Catholic

eruption in Colombia. The news article you are about to read reports
1. First Communion name: a name
the rite of Holy Communion.
of the child’s first participation in
2. Azucena (ä-sL-sDPnE).
3. Rolf Carlé (rälf kärPlA).
underground.
4. subterranean (sObQtE-rAPnC-En): of earthquakes.
that record the intensity and duration
5. seismographs (sFzPmE-grBfsQ): instruments
the earth. Niña (1943), Julia Diaz. Oil on
6. telluric (tC-lMrPGk): relating to
canvas, 30 cm × 35 cm. Courtesy
of the Julia Diaz Foundation.
586 unit 5: author’s purpose

what happened to the girl, Omaira Sanchez, who was the inspiration
Use with “And of Clay Are for Allende’s fictional Azucena.
We Created,” page 586.

Standards Focus: Analyze a News Article

A news article is a factual account of a real-life event. The author’s
purpose for writing a news article is to inform or explain. News
RI 2 Determine the central articles typically provide the following elements:
idea of a text and analyze its
development over the course of • a headline summarizing the article
the text. RI 3 Analyze how the
author unfolds and develops a • photographs with captions, or lines of explanation
series of events, the order in which
they occur, and the connections
• a lead—the first few sentences of an article, which are meant to
drawn between the events. grab the reader’s attention. The lead often contains the story’s
RI 4 Determine the meaning of
words and phrases as they are
central idea, or main idea, as well.
used in a text. • answers to the questions who, what, when, where, why, and how,
the story’s most important details.
• less important details arranged in order of decreasing importance
As you read the following news article, note the information it
provides, and record the information on a chart like the one shown.

Elements of News Article Information Provided

Headline

Photos and Captions

Lead

Answers to who, what, when,

where, why, and how questions

Additional details

598 unit 5: author’s purpose

 Reading for Information

WORL D EV EN TS

Girl, Trapped in Water

for 55 Hours, Dies
Despite Rescue Attempts

Rescue efforts to save Omaira Sanchez a a ANALYZE A

NEWS ARTICLE
What do you learn
by Julia Preston from this photograph
and its caption?
Armero, Colombia—Omaira of mud that rolled over Armero
Sanchez, a 13-year-old girl trapped Wednesday night.
up to her neck for more than 55 Trapped in the chilly water the
hours in floodwaters, died yesterday little girl shivered violently and her
morning despite rescuers’ frantic hands turned a deathly white.
efforts to free her. b Finally her blood pressure dropped b ANALYZE A
Omaira’s legs were pinned in the so low she suffered a heart attack, NEWS ARTICLE
ruins of what was once her home by according to Alejandro Jimenez, 23, Which of the six
journalistic questions
a cement slab and by the body of an a medical student volunteer at the
are answered in the
10 aunt who drowned in the avalanche 20 disaster site who attended the child. first paragraph of
the article?

reading for information 599

c ANALYZE A c
NEWS ARTICLE
What information
does this photograph
convey to you?

Mudflow covering the fields after the Nevado del Ruiz eruption

“You can imagine At 2 p.m.

#!2)""%!.
how I feel,” said 3%! yesterday, four
Jimenez, looking hours after
drawn and exhaust- 6%.%:5%,! Omaira died,
ed yesterday morn- a Colombian
ing. “We stayed up 0!#)&)# radio station
/#%!. !RMERO
all night trying to announced that
#/,/-")!
d ANALYZE A save her.” d 18 water pumps
NEWS ARTICLE About a dozen 50 had just arrived
How is Alejandro 30 rescuers from the in a town 45
Jimenez involved in
Colombian Air %#5!$/2
miles from
3/54(
!-%2)#!
the events?
Force, the Red Armero. To the
Cross, and fire 0%25 end, rescue
departments of workers dug with
towns near Armero their bare hands
RI 4
radioed increasingly desperate pleas at the cement slab leaning on
since Thursday for an electric pump Omaira’s numb legs, and bailed the
Language Coach to keep the fetid waters from rising water with tin cans.
Etymology A word’s above the girl’s chin. They called for 60 Someone stretched a dirty blue-
etymology is its history. 40 picks, shovels, and winches to clear and-white checkered tablecloth over
The Latin word foetere away rubble trapping her. the scene of tragedy, a scene that,
means “to stink.” Use this displayed in newspapers around the
Latin root to figure out
world yesterday, came to represent the
the meaning of a word in
line 38.
horror of the disaster.

600 unit 5: author’s purpose

 Reading for Information
After Reading

Comprehension
1. Recall What caused Omaira Sanchez to be trapped? RI 2 Determine the central
idea of a text and analyze its
2. Summarize What efforts did rescue workers make to try to save Omaira? development over the course of
the text. RI 3 Analyze how the
author unfolds and develops a
Text Analysis series of events, the order in which
they occur, and the connections
drawn between the events.
3. Read a News Article What details are provided by Alejandro Jimenez? What RI 7 Analyze various accounts
would have been the effect if he had not been mentioned or quoted? of a subject told in different
mediums. W 2 Write explanatory
texts to examine and convey
4. Analyze Details What do the details about the pumps’ arrival and the complex ideas.
checkered tablecloth contribute to the article?
5. Evaluate Graphic Aids Explain what each photograph adds to your
understanding of the events. Which of the two photographs has greater
emotional impact? Give reasons for your answer.

Read for Information: Compare Accounts

writing prompt
A news article and a short story are very different forms of writing, with
different purposes and different strengths. Compare and contrast the
article about Omaira Sanchez with Allende’s story about Azucena. What
elements do the pieces have in common? What elements are specific to
each form, and what is their effect on you as a reader? Ultimately, which
piece affected you more strongly? Why?

To respond to this prompt, you will need to compare and contrast, following
these steps:
1. Create a large Venn diagram like the one shown.
2. On one side, note elements found only in the short story, such as the inner
thoughts of the characters.
3. On the other side, note
elements found only in
the news article, such as Short Story Both News Article
photographs of the scene.
4. In the middle, note elements
the two pieces have in common.
5. Weigh the elements on each side, and decide which piece affected you
more strongly.

reading for information 601