Teacher Preparation

Overarching learning goal: Students will understand the differences and similarities between poetry and song lyrics. Students will be able to describe and demonstrate examples of the concept of intertextuality and apply their understanding to Paul Kelly's songs.

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

The documentary Paul Kelly - Stories Of Me deals with writing and performing songs, but there is more to creating texts than can be explored through the film. This lesson deals with how texts are created, the forms they take, their codes and conventions and how they are influenced by other texts.

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.

Part A of this lesson starts with an activity that requires a space cleared of tables and chairs. The usual classroom area should suffice, and you could set up the tables to line the walls of the classroom - that way students could sit at them when required, then return to the space in the middle of the room when required.

Teaching sequence:

55 minutes	Part A: Poetry and Song Lyrics
55 minutes	Part B: Theft or Creative Inspiration?
10 minutes	Reflection/Homework

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

Part A: Poetry and Song Lyrics

Step 1.

Before commencing the lesson, clear away the tables and chairs in the classroom and create a line on the floor (using masking tape, a line of string/wool, some chalk, or ask students to imagine that a line is there). Attach the Poetry print out on the wall at one end of the line, and the Song Lyrics print out at the other end.

Step 2.

To start the lesson, share with students that they will be considering the differences and similarities of poetry and song lyrics by standing along the line to demonstrate their view on whether the statements you will read out are descriptions of one or the other. When students have decided where to stand in order to represent their view, invite them to share why they chose to stand where they did.

Read out the statements below one at a time and invite students to stand on the line in the place that they think represents what is being described:

engages the reader and listener emotionally
benefits from evocative and compelling diction
uses effective imagery
can benefit from the clear rhythm and rhyming pattern
can be made up of verses (stanzas) and refrains

Some clarification around the meaning of each statement may be necessary before students make a judgement about whether they think they are describing poetry or song lyrics.

Importantly, the statements all describe BOTH poetry and song lyrics - you could finish this activity with a quick discussion about this, and highlight that each statement could have been either poetry or song lyrics because of the subjective nature of interpretation. This activity could also be expanded by a quick web search into the difference between poetry and song lyrics.

Step 3.

Ask students to grab a chair and sit in a semi-circle facing the board. On the whiteboard or a piece of butcher's paper, draw a Venn diagram, with the circles labelled "Poetry" and "Song Lyrics" respectively, and ask students to contribute their idea to the diagram. There aren't really any specific answers to 'get to' in this activity - the purpose is to highlight for students that poetry and song lyrics have similarities and differences. Ensure that the class is engaged in a brief discussion if any of the suggestions are debated - the decision about which circle to include the description in should be as inclusive as possible.

Step 4.

Once students have made their contributions, leave the Venn diagram in the view of the class.

Step 5.

Students elaborate on and demonstrate their understanding of the similarities and differences of poetry/song lyrics by either:
Writing their own poem
OR
Writing their own song
OR
Writing a persuasive piece that uses evidence from the class discussion, the statements made in the documentary and supporting research to argue their position on the statement: "Paul Kelly's song lyrics are more like poetry." (Remind students that they can disagree with the statement!)

Part B: Theft or Creative Inspiration?

Step 1.

Watch a section of the Paul Kelly - Stories of Me documentary (16:38 - 17:20) to hear the interviewee's different views of Paul Kelly's song composition process. Guide the class to listen specifically for the different perspectives around whether Paul Kelly's songs are truly original, or are inspired by other people's compositions.

PK Theft or Creative inspiration interview

Step 2.

Conduct a quick poll of students' views on the question of "theft or creative inspiration?" Do so by inviting the whole class stand up, then to sit down if they believe that Paul Kelly's allusions to other people's songs in his own is theft. Ask the students who have remained standing to pair with a student who is sitting (if there aren't enough students with different views to allow them to form pairs, they could join with a student they agree with). Invite students to spend 5 minutes sharing their viewpoints with each other.

Step 3.

Read the following quotation as a class (it also appears on the Student Worksheet) to prompt student thinking about whether Paul Kelly's songs are truly original (the word 'text' could be replaced with the word 'song'):

"We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single...meaning...but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. ...text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture" - Roland Barthes, "Death of the Author" from Image, Music, Text, 1977, Page 11.

Invite students to respond to the question below on the Student Worksheet:

"What do you think the author might be saying about the uniqueness of texts (or song lyrics)?"

Note: The 'tissue of quotations', this intertextuality, enriches our response to a text. It places the text within certain cultural contexts for us and, when we respond to it, carries echoes of other texts we have experienced. This overlaying of meanings makes one’s response to a text more intricate and potentially more individual.

Step 4.

Guide students to explore the concept of intertextuality in relation Paul Kelly's use of other people's songs. You could do so by inviting students to pair up and spend 10 minutes or so conducting a Google search to collect as many texts, phrases, pictures, examples and other artefacts to make meaning around the concept of intertextuality.

Encourage students to note the source of each artefact. Use a shared document (such as Google docs) to compile what students have found, or ask students to print their research and stick it to the whiteboard or wall. Display the class's findings on a projector if they created a shared digital file (or ask all students to view the shared document) and encourage each pair to explain at least one of the artefacts they contributed.

Some examples of artefacts students could collect and share are:

quotes that help to explain intertextuality
names of texts that illustrate examples of intertextuality, e.g. film and song titles
names of famous artists who use intertextual references in their works
pictures that feature examples of intertextuality

Summarise the activity with a discussion on what students understand intertextuality to be.

Step 5.

Watch Megan Washington's rendition of "Meet Me in the Middle of the Air" seen at 55:50 of Paul Kelly - Stories of Me.

Megan Washington Meet Me in the Middle of the Air Music Lesson

Open an extra page or section in the shared document/display from the previous activity, and use it to create a collaborative mind-map to visualise students' responses and ideas about the statement: "Paul Kelly's song becomes Megan Washington's ... this an example of intertextuality."

Conclude this step by asking students to think about other parts of the film that feature examples of intertextuality and note them on the Student Worksheet. They could then pair with another student and share their ideas.

Step 6.

As a class, or individually in a silent reading activity, read this section of "Words Matter" by Sophie Cunningham (from Paul Kelly - The Essays).

"[I]t's worth remembering that Kelly doesn't always tell the truth—or, more to the point, truth changes. My stepfather, an English teacher, put it to me this way: 'Writers often say they're influenced by one person or other, by one thing or other, after the event. But they're often making it up.' Think of Kelly as an unreliable narrator and a shameless one at that. A man who's not afraid to assemble songs from the bits and pieces of other people's lives as well as his own. All Kelly's friends probably wonder if they've been used in a song some time or other. They probably have been, along with people he's been watching on the tram, or met after gigs, or heard speak at weddings and funerals. But by the time some fleeting moment or conversation has been forged to suit the purposes of the song, it has been transformed. Words can be a form of punishment or they can be offered as a gift but nobody owns them (to put, for a brief moment, endless arguments about copyright aside). The trick is to take the songs back and make them your own. It's what happens in the space between the writer and the reader, the singer and the listener, where things get interesting."

Invite students to spend five minutes free writing (on the Student Worksheet) to consider the question: "Does anyone own words?"

Step 7.

Repeat Step 2 (class poll "theft or creative inspiration?") Ask the class to stand, and then sit if they believe that Paul Kelly's songs are a result of theft from other sources. Once students have demonstrated their viewpoint again, ask those whose opinion has changed to expand a little on what informed their change of perspective.

Reflection/Homework

Students identify a song that they enjoy listening to that has been inspired by a separate source. In a manner that they choose, students describe the song, and apply their new understanding of intertextuality by asking whether their chosen artist has engaged in theft or creative inspiration. They could also detail how their perspective of the song has changed after completing the activities in this lesson.

Differentiated Learning

Extension: Students apply their understanding of poetry, song lyrics and intertextuality to write their own song lyrics using inspiration from a song of their choice. Prompt students with the following:

Sometimes a song has parts that we can relate to, but there are also sections in it that aren't really about us. Choose a song that you relate to, or that you think describes some experiences you have had in the past, then take the lyrics and alter them to reflect your personal experiences more accurately. Use your understanding of the concept of intertextuality to make the song your own.

After students have completed their song, they should also write a short paragraph that explains their view on whether they were a 'thief', or if they were using 'creative inspiration'.

Provisional Learning Support: Students could watch and/or read an extra interview with Paul Kelly to further their understanding of his approach to song composition and expand their thoughts around the question of 'theft or creative inspiration'.
Paul Kelly "Enough Rope" interview Part 1
Paul Kelly "Enough Rope" interview Part 2
Paul Kelly "Enough Rope" interview transcript

PAUL KELLY - STORIES OF ME - Writing the Songs

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