Teacher Preparation

Overarching learning goal: Students gain a better understanding of how a storyteller's life can be related to the stories they tell. They will establish the relationship between events in the life of musician Paul Kelly and the meaning behind his songs. They will be able to evaluate other's opinions around the relationship between the story and the storyteller, and will develop a better understanding of informative texts when they plan draft and create a report that details a variety of viewpoints around the prompt: "Exactly whose story does Paul Kelly tell?"

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.

Teaching sequence:

25 minutes	Part A: Linking Paul Kelly's Songs to his Life
30 minutes	Part B: Is Reality Reflected in Paul Kelly's Songs?
50 minutes	Part C: Reporting the Findings
15 minutes	Reflection

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

Part A: Linking Paul Kelly's Songs to his Life

Note: If your students haven't watched the Paul Kelly - Stories of Me documentary, set homework to watch the film. While they are watching, students should think about a song from the film that they would like to focus on for the activities when back in class.

Step 1.

Conduct a quick classroom poll. Ask students to raise their hands if they agree with the statement: "Art imitates life." Ask for some reasons and examples from a couple of members of the class, ensuring that you hear from students who agree and disagree with the statement.

Step 2.

Ask students to form groups of three based on the song that they chose to focus on when they watched the documentary. Encourage students to choose different songs if required so that there is an even spread across the class.

Step 3.

Invite students to interpret and analyse the meaning of the song they have chosen and describe the events in Paul Kelly's life that they think relate to the song. They can use the questions on the Student Worksheet to guide them:

What are your thoughts about the meaning of the song you're focusing on?
Do you think the song relates to Paul Kelly's Life? Expand on your response a little.

Part B: Is Reality Reflected in Paul Kelly's Songs?

Step 1.

Use Blu-Tack to stick a copy of each of the interviewee quotes from Paul Kelly - Stories of Me to the walls around the classroom:

"Paul would of course say and he said many times that his songs are not about himself, that they are stories. He’s, he’s an artist and he’s making stories. However, his songs have tracked his life so closely that no one but no one can believe that." John Kingsmill
"Paul is a fiction writer in the medium of songs and he writes very personal songs so he draws from his life but he crafts the songs in the same way that a fiction writer does in that he creates a new story." Deborah Conway
"You can, you can smell the, the canvas and the sweat and the, the hay and it takes you back, it does. Words, words, that’s the, that’s the, that’s the, that’s what’s what’s deadly about words you know?" Archie Roach

Step 2.

Invite groups to move to each of the quotes, read it and discuss if they believe the quote supports their thoughts about whether the song they analysed connects to Paul Kelly's life (i.e. the extent of the relationship between story and storyteller).

Step 3.

Ask students to decide on the quote they think best supports their understanding of the connection between Paul Kelly's songs and his life. They should then stand or sit in close proximity to where the quote is stuck to the wall. Then, spend some time asking each group to share the reason they chose the quote. You could prompt students' explanations by asking questions such as:

What do you think the quote is saying about the connection between Paul Kelly's songs and his life experiences?
How does the quote match with your understanding of the connection?
Do you think that Paul Kelly writes songs about his life or just life in general?
Do you think Paul Kelly's stories are connected to their storyteller?

Encourage students to expand on their justification and to support their group members to explain the decision they made, and encourage the rest of the class to ask clarifying questions as they arise. Remind students that what they are sharing is their opinion, and as such, they can't really get it wrong, as long as they can justify their thoughts with evidence from the text.

Part C: Reporting the Findings

This writing task requires students to plan, draft and write in the expository form of a report. Encourage students to adopt a non-biased mindset when considering and reporting on the range of perspectives offered in the documentary and beyond. You could spend some time exploring some examples of reports with your class - consider using news and entertainment reports from weekend newspapers or reports from magazines about music and the arts.

Step 1.

Share with the class that they now have the opportunity to create a written piece that summarises the different views about the question: "Exactly whose story does Paul Kelly tell?" Students create a written report that explores the relationship between Paul Kelly (the storyteller) and his songs (the stories).

Step 2.

Before students begin their draft, discuss the conventions of a written report, namely:

The forms reports can take:

The purpose of a report:

Linguistic structures and features of a report:

informative
descriptive
investigative
scientific/technical

to classify and describe
to compare
to record feelings and observations

Structure:

focus on groups of things
opening general statement/classification
facts about specific aspects of the topic are grouped together

Features to focus on:

economical language
use present tense
formal objective
organisation of information

Guide the class in highlighting the dot points that are applicable for the type of piece that they will plan, draft and publish.

Step 3.

Encourage students to report on at least three different ideas around the prompt. They should also include the reasons given by each person's view they include in their report. Remind the class that a report is an unbiased presentation of aspects around the subject matter and as such, they could base their writing on the viewpoints of interviewees featured in the documentary, as well as the justified opinions that their classmates shared in Part B of this lesson. You could also discuss with or indicate to students how they should publish and submit their writing.

Reflection/Homework

Students are asked to respond to the following:

How difficult was it to plan, draft and write a report? Rate the difficulty on a scale of 1-10 (1=super easy, 10= virtually impossible). Why did you give that rating? What was easy or hard about writing a report?
Have a bit of think about the how valuable you think this type of writing is. Assign a value from 1-10 (1=not valuable at all, 10=extremely valuable). In a couple of words, describe why you gave that rating.
What's one thing that you did really well when you were writing your report? What is one thing that you would do differently next time?

Differentiated Learning

Extension: Students could publish their report in a style that they deem appropriate - they could take inspiration from examples such as newspaper reports, magazine reports, etc.

Provisional Learning Support: Students could use the Adobe Voice app to record a spoken report.

PAUL KELLY - STORIES OF ME - The Relationship Between Story and Storyteller

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