PAUL KELLY - STORIES OF ME - Writing the Songs

Australian Curriculum content descriptions:

Year 9 English:

• Understand that authors innovate with text structures and language for specific purposes and effects (ACELA1553)
• Explore and reflect on personal understanding of the world and significant human experience gained from interpreting various representations of life matters in texts (ACELT1635)
• Analyse texts from familiar and unfamiliar contexts, and discuss and evaluate their content and the appeal of an individual author’s literary style (ACELT1636)
• Investigate and experiment with the use and effect of extended metaphor, metonymy, allegory, icons, myths and symbolism in texts, for example poetry, short films, graphic novels, and plays on similar themes (ACELT1637)
• Create literary texts, including hybrid texts, that innovate on aspects of other texts, for example by using parody, allusion and appropriation (ACELT1773)
• Use interaction skills to present and discuss an idea and to influence and engage an audience by selecting persuasive language, varying voice tone, pitch, and pace, and using elements such as music and sound effects (ACELY1811)

Year 10 English:

• Understand that people’s evaluations of texts are influenced by their value systems, the context and the purpose and mode of communication (ACELA1565)
• Analyse how higher order concepts are developed in complex texts through language features including nominalisation, clause combinations, technicality and abstraction (ACELA1570)
• Refine vocabulary choices to discriminate between shades of meaning, with deliberate attention to the effect on audiences (ACELA1571)
• Analyse and explain how text structures, language features and visual features of texts and the context in which texts are experienced may influence audience response (ACELT1641)
• Analyse and evaluate text structures and language features of literary texts and make relevant thematic and intertextual connections with other texts (ACELT1774)
• Create literary texts that reflect an emerging sense of personal style and evaluate the effectiveness of these texts (ACELT1814)
• Identify and explore the purposes and effects of different text structures and language features of spoken texts, and use this knowledge to create purposeful texts that inform, persuade and engage (ACELY1750)

Year 11 English:

Unit 1
Investigate the relationships between language, context and meaning by:

• explaining how texts are created in and for different contexts (ACEEN001)

Examine similarities and differences between imaginative, persuasive and interpretive texts including:

• explaining the ways text structures, language features and stylistic choices are used in different types of texts (ACEEN005)

Analyse and evaluate how responses to texts, including students’ own responses, are influenced by:

• purpose, taking into account that a text’s purpose is often open to debate (ACEEN008)
• personal, social and cultural context (ACEEN009)
• the use of imaginative, persuasive and interpretive techniques. (ACEEN010)

Create a range of texts:

• using appropriate form, content, style and tone for different purposes and audiences in real and imagined contexts (ACEEN011)
• drawing on a range of technologies in, for example, research, communication and representation of ideas (ACEEN012)
• using evidence-based argument (ACEEN014)
• using appropriate quotation and referencing protocols (ACEEN015)

Unit 2

Compare texts in a variety of contexts, mediums and modes by:

• explaining the relationship between purpose and context (ACEEN021)
• analysing the style and structure of texts including digital texts (ACEEN022)

Investigate the representation of ideas, attitudes and voices in texts including:

• analysing the ways language features, text structures and stylistic choices shape points of view and influence audiences (ACEEN024)
• evaluating the effects of rhetorical devices, for example, emphasis, emotive language and imagery in the construction of argument (ACEEN025)

Analyse and evaluate how and why responses to texts vary through:

• the interplay between imaginative, persuasive and interpretive techniques, for example, how anecdotes are used in speeches to amuse, inform or influence, or the use of characteristation in advertising (ACEEN030)

Create a range of texts:

• using imaginative, interpretive and persuasive elements for different purposes, contexts and audiences (ACEEN032)
• experimenting with text structures, language features and multimodal devices (ACEEN033)
• selecting and applying appropriate textual evidence to support arguments (ACEEN035)

General capabilities: Literacy, Critical and Creative Thinking, Ethical Understanding, ICT Capability.

Unit of work: PAUL KELLY – STORIES OF ME

Time required: 120 minutes (or 2x 60 minutes)

Level of teacher scaffolding: Medium – facilitate student discussion, coordinate student movement around classroom.

• Student Worksheet – one copy per student OR computers/tablets to access the online worksheet and conduct web searches
• Device capable of presenting a website to the class
• Copy of Paul Kelly – Stories of Me (teachers are required to create an account to view and invite students to view the film)
• Copy of Paul Kelly – The Essays (Chapter 4, “Words Matter” by Sophie Cunningham)
• Poetry and Song Lyrics print outs
• Blu-Tack, class-accessible shared document (i.e. Google docs) OR printer
• Masking tape, string/wool, chalk, butcher’s paper (optional)

This lesson uses sections of Shark Island Production’s Paul Kelly – Stories of Me as learning stimuli. Teachers are required to create an account on the film’s website to view the film. Upon registration you will be given a code – give this to your students so that they can access the film too.