Teacher Preparation

Overarching learning goal: Students will recognise the impact that their own personal context has upon their response to texts. They will be able to read texts critically in order to understand implied meaning and engage with texts more deeply. Students will be able to discuss their ideas around the documentary's exploration of 'voice' both verbally and in a written piece using evidence from the text. They will be able to assess public reception of texts and construct their own critical review.

Teacher content information: This lesson is based on the film Paul Kelly - Stories of Me, which charts the many lives, loves and losses of Paul Kelly, one of Australia’s most gifted singer-songwriters. His songs have been marking out the Australian landscape and its people through words and music for almost 40 years. The stories and the music of Paul Kelly explore and reflect the Australian experience, life and culture.

The film is a contemporary music documentary that allows students to explore popular culture, storytelling and how people are represented in texts. It highlights different aspects of the Australian experience and showcases how art reflects and celebrates life. The film's portrayal of Kelly's life and music covers themes such as relationships, family, culture, love, identity, death and friendship. Throughout the unit, all are peeled back, examined and applied to students' English studies.

Through Paul Kelly - Stories of Me, students consider how Kelly has lived through failure and triumph, and will experience the songs that show it. Although a very private person in a public career, Paul Kelly - Stories of Me digs deeply into what makes Paul Kelly tick, revealing more about the man and his music than ever before. The study of Paul Kelly - Stories of Me provides students with opportunities to reflect upon the human condition and critically examine their own experiences in order to creatively depict their own story.

For more information, view the following:

Paul Kelly - Stories of Me - About the Film - Factsheet
Paul Kelly - Stories of Me - Director's Statement - Factsheet
Telling a Musical Story - Factsheet
Making Up Stories Of Me - Factsheet

One of the most important things students learn throughout their English studies is how to develop and refine their personal response to texts; moving their spontaneous first response to something more considered, grounded in the text, and ultimately to a critical reading, one that recognises how our own experiences and perspectives influence the ways we understand the world and how silences in a text can be given voice. This lesson explores the notion that evaluation of texts extends beyond consideration of texts in isolation and invites students to assess cultural value. Cultural value has been a contentious issue in the past and in some arenas continues to be so.

This lesson links to the lesson Paul Kelly - Stories of Me - Taking Action, which details how to facilitate student-led social action while integrating the themes and values explored in the film Paul Kelly - Stories of Me.

Teaching sequence:

25 minutes	Part A: Personal Response to the Documentary
60 minutes	Part B: Reading Critically
30 minutes	Part C: The Reviews
5 minutes	Reflection

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

Part A: Personal Response to the Documentary

Step 1.

Introduce the lesson by allowing 5 minutes for students to THINK about their favourite part of Paul Kelly - Stories of Me, then PAIR with a classmate, and SHARE their recollection.

Step 2.

Invite students to use the key questions on the table (on the Student Worksheet) to consider the changes in their response to the film from their initial response to one that recognises social and cultural influences that can shape their attitudes and tastes.

Key questions:	Details to consider in your response:	Reasons or elaborations:
Am I able to identify or connect with a character or situation in the documentary?	Who do I identify with? What situation do I identify with? What elements of the documentary allow me to identify with it?
What parts of me, my personal context and experiences influence the connection I have to (parts of) the documentary?	My experiences? My current situation? My age? My gender? My cultural heritage? Needing to respond for an English lesson?
How has the way I listened, read and viewed practices influenced my response and the way I understand the documentary and its impact?	My ability to become involved in the world of the text: The documentary's aesthetic complexity or variety:
Is my response the same as people who are like me/in the same situation as me?	The English class? Other young people? Females/Males? My theoretical position?

Part B: Reading Critically

This section of the lesson involves a critical assessment of the film Paul Kelly - Stories of Me. The activities aim to encourage students to look more deeply into the meaning of the film by exploring the role of silence in the representation of Paul Kelly in the documentary.

Step 1.

Guide students to critically assess the story that the filmmaker tells about the influence of Paul Kelly upon the people in his life. Note that the final scenes of the documentary show Paul Kelly performing in a number of different contexts: the 1997 Reconciliation Conference, his performance at a small concert in a bush setting and a concert attended by thousands of mostly young people. It is apparent through the diversity of these performances and the different reactions of his audiences that Paul Kelly speaks with and to a broad range of Australian people - and yet a sense of silence about Paul Kelly 'the person' prevails. The interviews with Paul Kelly at the opening of the film characterise him as an observer, a great listener, 'not an open book'. He is also described by others in who are interviewed as a bard or a kind of 'everyman' whose voice and the messages he conveys covers a vast range of people. The opening of the documentary establishes its central concern: who exactly is Paul Kelly? Kelly’s hesitant response - “I mean, I’m inside him so I can’t describe him” - demonstrates how silence can be used to amplify meaning.

Invite students to form pairs and watch from 1:14:50 to the final scene of Paul Kelly - Stories of Me, a concluding sequence that explores the effect that Paul Kelly has upon his varied audiences.

Paul Kelly performing at The Village Festival

While they are watching, invite students to note their observations (on the Student Worksheet) about what the audience finds out about Paul Kelly, including how he communicates and what he communicates. The table in the Student Worksheet includes screenshots of scenes from the documentary to prompt student thinking. There are also some blank sections where students are required to describe a scene of their choice in order to illustrate their understanding of how the audience learns about Paul Kelly in the documentary.

PK performing at Australian Reconcilliation conference

Step 2.

Using their observations of the closing scenes of the documentary as well as their knowledge of the text, students plan and draft an extended written piece that critically assesses 'silence' in the film. They could respond to the prompt below:

"Paul Kelly is virtually silent about himself, and yet we learn so much about him in the documentary Paul Kelly - Stories of Me. How does the filmmaker tell such a comprehensive story?"

Students could consider how these documentary film and language techniques are used in Paul Kelly - Stories of Me when planning their piece. They could choose 3-4 of the techniques listed and describe how they are used by the filmmaker to tell a story, as well as the effect of each on the audience.

settings	drama	interviews
anecdote	historical and cultural context	text
archival footage	performances	song lyrics
contrasting images	dialogue	voiceover

Students could also use one or two of the questions below to frame their piece, if relevant:

What is meant by 'silence' in this instance?
Identify and evaluate stories from Paul Kelly’s life which illustrate how silence shapes the portrayal of Paul Kelly as a character in this documentary.
Analyse the reflections the song lyrics offer on how silence shapes relationships.
Reflect on the relationships between audiences, performance and silence.

Discuss with the class how and when they should submit their written piece. You could also encourage students to ask a classmate to read over their work and make recommendations for improvement before they submit for assessment.

Part C: The Reviewsv

Step 1.

Facilitate a class discussion/brainstorm to explore how a text can be received by the public (i.e. what happens once a film is released). Create a mind-map to visualise students' ideas either on the whiteboard or online using bubbl.us or mindmeister. Guide students to consider that once a text goes into the public domain and faces an audience, the process of comment and criticism begins. This may be formal (in a newspaper, magazine, journal, etc.) or informal (conversations, social media, blogs etc.) This is referred to as the reception of the text; that is, how it is received by the public.

Step 2.

Invite students to form pairs to discuss these three questions:

How often have you read, watched or listened to reviews of texts (e.g. films/music/TV programs/books?)
Where do you find these?
Do you always trust the review? Why or why not?

Students can summarise their discussion on the Student Worksheet.

Step 3.

Ask each pair to join with another in order to form groups of four, then choose one of the reviews of Paul Kelly - Stories of Me linked below, ensuring that each article has been assigned to at least one group:

The articles could be read online, or if students would benefit from a physical copy (to be able to underline unfamiliar words, for instance) you could print the articles. Students should read the review and analyse it using the questions on the Student Worksheet as a guide:

Features of a review		Your comments/describe the use of the feature:
Does the review:	name the film and director?
	give and overview of the film?
	discuss what was liked?
	discuss what wasn't liked?
	refer to how the film was made?
Are there examples of:	a personal comment?
	film techniques?
	plot summary?
	research?
	opinion?
	comment on the director?
	purpose of the film?
	reference to target audience"
How does the title of the review position the audience?
Find a statement that makes you want to see the film:
Find a statement that makes you think twice about seeing the film:
List the positive words and phrases used in the review:
List the negative words and phrases used in the review:
What is the tone of the review?

In order to ensure student participation during this group work task, encourage the group to read all of the set questions together, then decide collaboratively who will be responsible for responding to each question with a view to sharing the response, improving on it as a group, then inputting a final response on the Student Worksheet.

Step 4.

Invite groups to split back into pairs then join with a different pair to share their analysis.

Step 5.

Encourage students to read at least two of the other reviews. Using these as examples, and the list of questions from as a guide, students plan, draft and publish a review of a film, television show or video game that they have seen recently.

Reflection/Homework

Students could complete the written piece they began in Part B that explores ideas around the prompt: "Paul Kelly is virtually silent about himself, and yet we learn so much about him in the documentary Paul Kelly - Stories of Me. How does the filmmaker tell such a comprehensive story?", as well as their review of a film, television show or video game they began in Part C.

Differentiated Learning

Extension: Students could find and bring into class examples of silence represented in a range of texts, such as visual images, extracts of dialogue in texts, and examples of language that silences particular perspectives. In small groups students could share these texts, explaining how they relate to the idea of silence.

Provisional Learning Support: Students could produce a spoken podcast-style critical review for Step 5 in Part C. Some examples of movie reviews can be found here and here.

PAUL KELLY - STORIES OF ME - Analysing and Evaluating Response

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