Teacher Preparation

Overarching learning goal: Students will gain a better understanding of how filmmakers portray character. They will be able to discuss and compare the text features of biographical and narrative text types. Through close analysis of the opening scenes of Paul Kelly - Stories of Me, students will be able to explain how the subject of a text can be framed in order to position the audience in a specific way.

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

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

Students will be required to verbalise or write down their thoughts about unfamiliar concepts in front of their classmates, as well as move around the classroom during the activities in this lesson. You could commence the lesson by collaboratively deciding on a number of class agreements around how all in the classroom should interact with each other and the surroundings. Ensuring that all students contribute to these agreements will increase their ownership over their interactions with each other.

Teaching sequence:

55 minutes	Part A: The Portrayal of Character
55 minutes	Part B: Biography and Narrative
55 minutes	Part C: Framing the Subject
15 minutes	Reflection/Homework

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

Part A: The Portrayal of Character

Step 1.

Lead a class discussion about how character is constructed in a text. You could focus on the idea that we find out about characters in different ways - from what they say, from what they do/don’t do, from who they associate with, from what others say/don’t say about them.

Step 2.

Expand the ideas that were raised in the discussion in the previous step. Write the phrase "Character is shown through:" in the middle of the white board. Provide students with a sticky note each, and ask them to think about a character they are familiar with (it could be a character in a movie, a television show, a book etc.), and to write down one aspect of that character, and what the character did/said/achieved that demonstrates the aspect of the character.

For example: An aspect of Batman's character is that he is brave - we know this because he puts his life on the line to save the innocent citizens of Gotham City (an action that indicates bravery). So students could write: "Brave - puts life on the line for others"

Once students have written down their thoughts, invite them to stick their note to the whiteboard.

Step 3.

Review students' understanding of how character is developed and portrayed in texts by selecting students to read and expand on what they have written on their sticky note. Legitimising students' ideas could also help build their confidence to contribute during class discussions, and take risks by sharing more abstract and creative ideas.

Step 4.

Connect students' ideas about the construction of character in texts with the documentary Paul Kelly - Stories of Me. Invite students to complete the table on their Student Worksheet to illustrate their understanding of how Paul Kelly's character is portrayed through:

what he says
what he sings
what he does
what he has achieved
what others say about him
what he reads

Step 5.

You could further explore the manner in which Paul Kelly is portrayed throughout the documentary in a class interview circle activity - students will be supported to articulate a response in a set period of time to someone who they may not be familiar with. They'll likely require some encouragement to stick at it, as some of the questions are challenging and won't be easy to answer off the cuff! This is a great way to get students thinking about what they don't yet know about the text.

Invite students to sit in two circles - one inside of the other, with students who form the inner circle (group A) facing outwards and those sitting in the outer circle (group B) facing inwards (groups A and B should be facing each other). Students share their response to a (set) question, and their partner will scribe what they hear. Encourage students who are scribing to ask clarifying questions. If students are having difficulty responding to the question, encourage them to discuss it within their partnership before they seek your help.

Students should then swap roles for the next question. After each pair has had a turn answering and scribing, group A will then move one seat in a clockwise direction, so that they have a new partner. The process will then begin a again for two new questions. Continue the process until each of the questions on the list below have been discussed.

Questions to encourage focus on the voices speaking in Paul Kelly: Stories of Me:

Do all the interviewees agree with each other about Paul Kelly?
How do you weigh up the information when there are conflicting stories?
What kind of person are the interviewees revealing?
How different would the story be if a fan were speaking?
What kind of person is the filmmaker trying to reveal?
What kind of person does Paul Kelly reveal in his talks about himself?
Does this confirm or challenge the views presented by others?

Questions to encourage focus on the voices singing in Paul Kelly - Stories of Me:

What other voices do we hear singing?
How does this add to the documentary and our perception of Paul Kelly?

Encourage students to note what they would now like to find out about Paul Kelly as a result of this activity.

Step 6.

Students' understanding of how character is portrayed in text could be solidified by creating a visual representation of their response to the fundamental question that Paul Kelly avoided answering himself: who is he?

Invite students to explore the documentary's portrayal of who Paul Kelly is using images, quotes, song lyrics and summaries of ideas taken directly from the documentary. Students could use an online collage maker to create their visual representation - alternatively they could use more traditional art supplies to create their visual representation.

Students' thoughts about the portrayal of Paul Kelly can be narrowed down using the questions below to guide them in formulating ideas:

What is it that motivates Paul Kelly? Why?
What are the forces that shaped his life?

Part B: Biography and Narrative

When delivering this part of the lesson, keep in mind that a documentary biography has the intent of trying to explore someone’s life objectively and that it creates a story by selecting parts of someone’s life and organising these into a narrative. In a coherent narrative only those parts that develop the story are necessary. There is a sense of causation that one thing happens to lead to another and influence the outcome. The main character is the person being studied and the setting is the places he/she has been. Most biographies tend to adhere to certain conventions. They like to follow a chronological pattern from childhood to fame, often a variation of the hero’s journey. They try to suggest that there was always something about that person that distinguished him/her from others. As such, the lines between the genres of biography and narrative can blur.

Step 1.

Ask students to form small groups. Hand each group a 'Biography or Narrative' Matching Activity and invite students to work together to categorise the text feature description as either biography or narrative (Alternatively, the activity could be completed as a class using the whiteboard as the working space).This activity will encourage students to discuss the nature of biographical and narrative texts. While students are completing the activity, you could guide them to work together to discuss with each other the reasons for their matches, and thus better understand why each feature has been assigned to each text type.

Step 2.

Summarise the exploration of the differences and similarities between biography and narrative text types by asking students to fill in the table on the Student Worksheet, explaining their thoughts on the prompt: What do you think are the differences between stories and real life?

Part C: Framing the Subject

The documentary's first scene opens with dramatic action and intent that sets up and shapes how the audience understands the text. Use this part of the lesson to consider how Paul Kelly (the subject of the documentary) is portrayed through the opening sequence.

Step 1.

Watch the first five minutes of the documentary (00:00 to 05:10)

Step 2.

Use the following group discussion and sharing method to explore the concept of 'framing the subject': name each student in the class as a 'one', 'two' or 'three'. Invite students to form groups of three (each group should be made up of a 'one', a 'two' and a 'three') to work together. Using the Student Worksheet to guide them, each group should discuss and note down ideas about the elements listed in one of the dot points below, and the influence on how the subject (Paul Kelly) is framed at the beginning of the documentary.

If the concepts below are totally unfamiliar to students, they could use the internet to conduct some self-directed research in order to gain a better understanding of what each of the concepts mean, and then apply their understanding to how each of the elements contribute to framing the subject:

The choice of characters and their placement, costume, movement
The landscape, soundscape, set contrast and mise-en-scene
Camera angles, shot length and size, focus, light and lighting

Once students have had enough time to research the concepts and discuss their ideas about how they apply to the opening scene of Paul Kelly - Stories of Me, ask students to form new groups in order to share their learning. You could coordinate student movement by asking 'one's' to move anti-clockwise to sit with a different group and all 'three's' to move to clockwise to sit with a different group ('two's' stay put). Invite students to take turns to recount their group's discussion with their new group. Ensure that the new concepts are learned in a self-guided manner by encouraging students to take their own notes about the discussion points they did not research on the Student Worksheet and to ask clarifying questions about the concepts and ideas being shared.

Step 3.

Evaluate the learning from the previous step by conducting a class brainstorm around what the documentary maker’s intention behind the opening scene might have been. Display student thinking by using on online mind-map such as mindmeister or bubbl.us - the central question for the brainstorm could be: "How does the filmmaker want you to see Paul Kelly?" Encourage students to incorporate their new understandings of the concepts explored in step 2, and how they support students' responses to the central question.

Step 4.

Students' understanding is now demonstrated through the planning, drafting and publishing of a persuasive text that argues for or against the statement: "The opening scene in Paul Kelly - Stories of Me is successful in engaging the viewer's interest in the subject and in the film." Students should use this persuasive essay graphic organiser to plan their piece.

Reflection/Homework

Students could refine and publish the visual representation they began in Step 6 of Part A.

Students could complete the persuasive piece they started in Step 4 of Part C.

Differentiated Learning

Extension: Using Paul Kelly - The Essays, students read the documentary director, Ian Darling's essay: "Who is Paul Kelly?" (chapter 9). Select 5 scenes from the documentary film, and connect information provided about the construction of the documentary in Ian Darling's essay with their own commentary about how the documentary is created.

Provisional Learning Support: Students could write a comparative piece that details the opening scene of the film and compare it to the opening scene of another documentary film of their choice. In doing so, they will demonstrate their observations of each film's opening sequence, and their understanding of how the director creates a sense of story for the audience. Alternatively, they could take screenshots from each film and briefly annotate each scene with their observations.

PAUL KELLY - STORIES OF ME - Biography - Part 2

Summary

Lesson Guides and Printables

Lesson Details

Curriculum Mapping

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Additional Info

PAUL KELLY - STORIES OF ME - Biography - Part 2

Summary

Lesson Guides and Printables

Lesson Details

Curriculum Mapping

Resources Required

Additional Info