Content Objectives
Wonderstruck: Disability Awareness through Visual Storytelling will explore issues around disability, inclusion and identity through the use of contemporary children’s literature and film. Students will build empathy along with analytical skills as we explore Brian Selznick’s graphic novel Wonderstruck and Todd Haynes’ film adaptation of the book.
Wonderstruck follows two stories set 50 years apart. Rose’s story, set in 1927 New York, unfolds entirely in full-page illustrations, while Ben’s, set in 1977 Minnesota, is told in words. The book weaves back and forth between the two stories, eventually intertwining them in both plot and style, and ultimately revealing a familial connection between Ben and Rose. Another key connection between the two characters is revealed early on: both Rose and Ben are deaf. Ben was born without hearing in one ear, and part way through the book, he loses hearing in his other ear. Rose, on the other hand, has been deaf since birth.
Ben’s Story
It’s June 1977, and Ben is an 11-year-old boy living in Gunflint Lake, Minnesota. He was born deaf in one ear. Recently his mother Elaine, who was the town librarian, died in a car crash. Ben now lives with his aunt, uncle and cousins across the lake from the house he grew up in. He never met his dad, and feels compelled to find out who he is. Ben finds a book of his mom’s called Wonderstruck, which is about the history of museums. He opens the book up and begins to read. He learns about cabinets of wonders, also known as cabinets of curiosities or wonder rooms. Cabinets of wonders originated in mid-sixteenth-century Europe, and were small collections of extraordinary objects, typically located in a person’s home, which endeavored to categorize and tell stories about the wonders and oddities of the natural world.4 They were essentially a precursor to the natural history museums of today, but with elements of superstition alongside the science. Objects often included specimens, diagrams, and drawings from many disciplines, as well as tribal masks, shrunken heads and other items collected while traveling. These cabinets could be literal cabinets made of wood with glass doors, but oftentimes these collections filled an entire room, covering the walls and sometimes the ceiling. The Wonderstruck book featured a two-page photograph of a Cabinet of Wonders room that had been erected at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and exhibited to the public in the 1920’s.
This book fascinates Ben, as he has been collecting various items like fossils, one of his baby teeth, stones from a meteorite, and a bird skull in a compartmentalized wooden box for many years. As he is reading, he finds a bookmark with the name, address and phone number of a bookstore in New York City. He also finds an inscription on the inside of the book that is signed “Love, Danny.” Ben wonders if Danny is his father and decides to call the number on the bookmark. As he is calling, a bolt of lightning strikes his house, travels through the phone line and knocks him unconscious. He wakes up the hospital and realized he is now deaf in both ears. He decides to sneak out of the hospital and run away to New York City to look for his father. Eventually he finds himself at the American Museum of Natural History. He meets a boy his age named Jamie, whose dad works at the museum. Jamie leads him to an unused storage room where he hides out. Something about the room seems oddly familiar to Ben. He notices that the wooden shelves along the wall are very ornate and decorative, uncharacteristic of a storage room. He looks down at the floor and recognizes the checkerboard pattern, but can’t put his finger on where he’s seen it before. He notices an old piece of fabric covering up a tall rectangular structure. He pulls off the fabric and finds a cabinet of wonders. He realizes that this storage room is actually the site of the Cabinet of Wonders exhibit that he had seen so many times in the Wonderstruck book. After exploring the Cabinet of Wonders, Ben lies down to take a nap, and ends up sleeping the whole night. The next morning he sets out to try to find his father. He locates the bookstore listed on the bookmark, and there he meets Rose.
Rose’s Story
It’s October 1927 and Rose lives with her authoritarian father in Hoboken, New Jersey. She was born deaf, and does not attend school or leave the house. She is visited regularly by a tutor, who, in addition to teaching her academic skills, is attempting to teach Rose to speak and lip read so that she can better assimilate into the world of hearing people. Rose does not like this approach and wishes to learn American Sign Language instead. She feels lonely and trapped at home, and is seen sitting in her room compiling a scrapbook of news clippings featuring her idol, silent film star and stage actress Lillian Mayhew. She decides to run away to New York City to see Mayhew perform in a play. She sneaks into the theater and is discovered by Mayhew, who turns out to be Rose’s mother. Mayhew is furious, and tells Rose it’s not safe for a deaf girl to be out of the house alone. She locks Rose in her dressing room, with the intention of eventually sending her back to her father. Rose escapes and goes to the American Museum of Natural History. She attempts to hide out there, and is found by her brother Walter, who works at the museum. It’s obvious that Rose and Walter have a warm relationship, and he understands her frustrations. He takes her back to his apartment, and promises to speak to their parents on her behalf.
1977
Ben arrives at the bookstore and meets Rose, who is now in her 60’s. After some communication challenges due to their mutual deafness and Ben not knowing sign language, Ben and Rose use a notepad to learn more about one another. Ben finds out that his father is indeed Danny. As it turns out Rose is Danny’s mother, and therefore Ben’s grandmother. Rose takes Ben to the Queens Museum where she tells him the story of her life. She tells him that after she ran away to New York City, her brother helped her find a school for deaf children, where she learned American Sign Language. Rose also tells Ben the story of how his parents met. He learns that Danny was a diorama designer at the American Museum of Natural History and met Ben’s mother Elaine while visiting Gunflint Lake to conduct research for a wolf diorama. Ben learns that Danny died of heart failure many years back. Rose shows Ben the Panorama of the City of New York, the largest architectural model ever built, depicting the city’s 5 boroughs and all 895,000 buildings. Rose was on the team that hand-built the Panorama for the 1964 World’s Fair. The book ends with the blackout of 1977, and Rose and Ben looking up at the stars from the roof of the Queens Museum while waiting for her brother Walter to pick them up.
Brian Selznick was inspired to write Wonderstruck after watching Through Deaf Eyes, a documentary for PBS about the history of Deaf life in America from the 19th century to the present. He decided to write a book about two deaf characters living years apart in different parts of the country. He knew he wanted Ben’s story to be set in 1977, the year of the famous blackout in New York City. Selznick had been the same age as Ben, 11, when the blackout happened and he remembers seeing the headlines in newspapers. Selznick grew up in New Jersey and visited Manhattan often as a child. His favorite spot on the island was The Museum of Natural History, and his favorite diorama there was the wolf diorama, which is set in Gunflint Lake, Minnesota. When doing research for Wonderstruck, Selznick thought about the diorama and the idea that someone from Gunflint Lake might visit the museum and discover this connection to their hometown.
Selznick knew he wanted his other character, Rose, to live in New Jersey, where he grew up. He knew that Rose would be deaf from birth, and planned to tell her story in drawings in order to reflect the way she experienced life: visually. But he was unsure of what year to set the story in. Then he remembered that films began to have sound in 1927. Prior to that, all films were “silent movies.” If characters were having a conversation, words would be written on the screen on “title cards.” But often most of the story was told visually, through action and facial expressions, as well a dramatic live music that was played in the theater during screenings of the movie. He decided to set Rose’s story in the year that silent films became “talkies.” At one point in the book, Rose sneaks out of the house to the local movie theater to watch a silent film starring her mother, Lillian Mayhew. At the theater, there are signs posted announcing that the theater will soon be equipped to show the new “talkies.”
In addition to writing the book, Selznick wrote the screenplay for Wonderstruck. He had long been a fan of film director Todd Haynes, and was thrilled when he found out Haynes wanted to direct the film adaptation of his book. In a 2017 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Haynes talked about what first attracted him to Wonderstruck.
The thing that excited me was that I'd never done a movie about kids, a film kids could see. But I wanted it to be as complex, sophisticated and rich as any cinematic experience, to make something really sublime for kids. Great kids films are great films.5
Todd Haynes is known for films that take an unconventional approach to the narrative form. His 2007 Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There features six different actors playing six different versions of Dylan at various stages in his life. Selznick’s Wonderstruck plays with the narrative form through its parallel storylines. It uses visuals in an inventive way, with Rose’s story being told entirely in drawings. These experimental elements make Wonderstruck an ideal novel for a director like Haynes to adapt. Haynes worked with Selznick to complete the screenplay, and many early creative decisions resulted from the collaboration of writer and director. However, Haynes took on the primary authorship role once filming was underway, in keeping with the modern role of director as “auteur.” The role of film auteur, however, does not mean sole authorship, and Haynes worked closely with the cinematographer, production designer, costume designer, editor and actors to craft the film. Haynes was especially concerned with capturing the look and feel of silent films from the 1920’s. He watched many silent movies in preparation for filming Rose’s story in Wonderstruck. He was particularly inspired by the nighttime cityscapes of F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise and the miniature models used in King Vidor’s The Crowd. The Wind starring Lillian Gish was the inspiration for Daughter of the Storm starring Lillian Mayhew, the silent movie depicted in Wonderstruck.
In many ways, Todd Haynes’ Wonderstruck is quite faithful to the source text. After all, Brian Selznick, the book’s author, wrote the screenplay with the help of Haynes. Selznick’s book contains visual elements resembling film. His pencil illustrations of Rose’s story have a cinematic quality, resembling a sequence of wide shots and close-ups depicting action. There are however, some significant aesthetic differences between the book and the film. One of the key adaptation decisions was made by Selznick while writing the screenplay. He decided that Rose’s story would be filmed in black and white, and would be shot and edited like a silent film, while Ben’s story would be shot in color, with sound. Shooting Rose’s story as a silent film reflects the way in which her character experiences life: visually.
Another important aesthetic decision was made by Todd Haynes and Mark Friedberg, the film’s production designer. They had the challenge of depicting the scene where Rose tells Ben the story of her life, along with her son Danny’s, taking place over a span of 50 years. Haynes and Friedberg had the idea of filming the entire sequence in miniature, much like dioramas in a museum or the Panorama of the City of New York. They worked with model makers and stop motion animators to create the sequence, using nineteen miniature sets and over 300 characters. Perhaps the most striking part of the sequence comes at the end, when puppets with photographic heads encased in lockets are used to depict Rose, Danny, Elaine and a young Ben. In creating these miniatures, Haynes used the dioramas and panorama in Selznick’s book as inspiration, all the while putting his own stylistic stamp on the film. The miniatures, especially the puppets and the way they are animated, echo the use of Barbie dolls in Haynes’ debut film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story.
Filmmakers have more storytelling tools at their disposal than novelists. These tools include camera framing and movement, inventive editing techniques and use of lighting, color, production design, costumes, music and sound. One sequence in the Wonderstruck film beautifully illustrates this difference. When Ben is struck by lightning in the book, the text describes Ben picking up the phone. We see a drawing of a lightning bolt. On the next page, the text describes Ben lying on the floor staring up at the ceiling, a terrible burning smell in the air. In the film’s version of this scene we see a close-up of Ben’s hand turning the dial on a rotary phone. As he dials the last number, we hear a high-pitched ringing sound followed by loud crackling, buzzing and overlapping music and sound effects. On the screen we see flashes of light, negative film exposures and soft focus shots of classic cartoons and Ben’s mother, cut together in quick succession. Shots are layered on top of one another to give the appearance of a double exposure. As we watch this surreal, jarring sequence it feels as if we’re penetrating Ben’s subconscious. All this occurs in a matter of seconds, as the lightning hits the house and travels through the phone line to Ben’s ear. For those few visceral seconds, the viewer is fully immersed, feeling the jolt of lightning as it strikes Ben and knocks him unconscious. In the sequence following, we see Ben regain consciousness. His confusion and disorientation are underscored by out-of-focus shots of the doctors and fluorescent ceiling lights. The only sound we hear is an eerie ringing as Ben’s aunt writes on a notepad, explaining to him that he has lost his hearing. Moments like this have the power to generate empathy in the viewer. When a well-crafted book is adapted into film, the potential emotional impact on the viewer is great. In the words of Todd Haynes, “When we fill a movie in with our emotions as spectators it becomes powerful and alive.” 6
My 5th graders will engage in a close reading of Wonderstruck, both the novel and the film. They will learn to analyze both text and film, and explore the relationship between the two media. They will examine the innovative ways in which a novel can be adapted into film, as described above. Wonderstruck, with its themes of identity and the search for belonging, along with its depiction of deaf children, will serve as a jumping off point for our exploration of disability. We will learn more about deaf culture by watching the documentary Through Deaf Eyes, which is the film that inspired Brian Selznick to write Wonderstruck. The film tells the story of deaf life in America, as told by members of the deaf community. We will discuss the debate between advocates of American Sign Language (ASL) and proponents of Oralism, the education of deaf people through oral language by using lip reading, speech and mimicking of mouth shapes and breathing patterns. This debate was illustrated in Wonderstruck when Rose refused to allow her oralist tutor to teach her lip reading, and instead wanted to learn ASL. This will lead to a larger discussion of disability, inclusion and identity. We will discuss the importance of understanding and embracing diversity by exploring the perspectives of those who are different from ourselves.
In the second phase of our unit, we will continue to explore disability culture, history, theory and look at some of the specific physical and cognitive disabilities that impact people. We will explore these topics through an immersion in various media such as news articles, books, excerpts of memoirs and biographies, and video clips of documentaries and narrative films. We will continue to discuss disability, inclusion and identity. We will explore the connotations of words like “handicapped,” “disabled” and “disability” and consider alternative words and phrases such as “differently abled” and “differences.” We will look at the ways in which these differences can impact daily functioning and how accommodations and universal design can address these challenges. Students will participate in simulation activities that will allow them to experience what it might feel like to have a particular disability. We will explore the concept of equity and how it differs from equality. We will discuss “person first” language and why many believe it’s a more accurate and respectful way to describe people. We will explore the history of disability in the Unites States, with a particular focus on the Disability Rights Movement of the middle 20th century that led to landmark legislation such as Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA).
We will read biographical and autobiographical picture books that tell the stories of people who have various disabilities. After reading these books as a class, each student will express interest in a particular book and the disability it depicts. Students will form inquiry circles based on shared interest. Each inquiry circle group will use their picture book as a jumping off point to further explore their chosen disability using various resources such as online news articles, informational books and documentary films.
Once all group members have a strong understanding of their disability, as well as the biographical story depicted in their chosen book, they will adapt that biographical story into a visual storytelling format of their choice and present their visual stories to the class.
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