Oodgeroo's "My People" teachers' review

Brief description and distinctive features

Distinctive features of poetry as a form: 

My People will enable students to enjoy these poems and the stories they tell at the same time as exploring significant themes and ideas about First Nations experiences. 

Please allow your students the opportunity to enjoy the sounds of the words and the emotional connection of this old, and revered form, of human expression.

Distinctive features of My People:

• The poems cover a range of ideas and complexity which have relevance and value for students in Stage 5. You could consider some poems for classes in Year 8.
• The collection includes two poems from her China collection: Kath Walker in China (1988) - China … Woman and Reed-flute Cave.
• Some poems are very short and others over 2-3 pages.
• Oodgeroo writes with clarity and her connection to Country and Culture is fierce, passionate and compelling.
• Some poems are devastating portraits of injustice including the ones about specific First Nations peoples e.g. Namatjira, Daisy Bindi, Bwalla the Hunter and Oh Trugganner!

The collection includes the transcript of Oodgeroo’s speech in 1989 when she received an honorary doctorate at Griffith university and is a powerful commentary of its day. This transcript includes a moving and compelling poem written by Oodgeroo’s close friend and fellow poet, Judith Wright - Two Dreamtimes which provides important insights.

Ways to use My People in the classroom

A lens for your exploration: categorising the poems

To help you decide what poems you might like to explore with your students or what you might encourage your students to explore themselves I have created four headings that I think provide some loose categorising of the poems’ key ideas and experiences. Please note that this is my framework and not that of the publisher or the poet. 

You might consider a class task where the students debate the value of these categories and instead, they could create their own lists. Also consider how the titles capture the category/perspective. Some poems will be suited to more than one category.

My categories:

Ideas:

Revisit the purpose of poetry and what distinguishes it from other forms. 

Build a classroom culture of reading the whole poem several times and exploring it before the deep dive into specific techniques. Encourage students to seek what speaks to them and that a long list of literary techniques including Greek terminology does not engender love and engagement. It should be less about the literary technique and more about how the poet, in this case Oodgeroo, purposefully uses language to express her ideas, emotions, perspectives and experiences of First Nations peoples. 

Poetry can:

• Tell a story
• Touch the soul
• Be tight, intense, rich, sustained, complex, concentrated lines of power, emotions, images
• Contain language which is selected and shaped to distil an experience, idea or perspective in a single, concentrated form
• Often rely on the precise and highly-crafted use of rhythm, metre, sound and image that work in concert to convey meaning
• Often be a single ‘voice’ – persona

Reading a poem out aloud can be one of the most effective strategies for engagement and interpretation.

Some strategies for analysing a poem through a close study of language and ideas

by Associate Professor Jackie Manuel (2019)

• First of all, look at the title of the poem 
• Read the poem aloud at least twice 
• How do you feel as you or someone else reads the poem?  
• Write down your responses using any words that come to your mind 
• Having gained some sense of the tone of the poem, look more closely at the speaker 
• Does the poem ask you direct questions or require you to call up your own similar experiences?
• Is there a setting for the poem? 
• What do you notice about the language?

Your school might have copies of Poets and Poetry (1992 Sadler, Hayllar and Powell). There is a chapter devoted to Oodgeroo which showcases 10 of the poems from this collection and includes some valuable questions on some of the poems which you could choose to explore with your class. 

1. Choose a poem from each category from the 4 tables and explore using the scaffold above. This will build student skills and confidence in engaging with the language of Oodgeroo as well as the ideas.
2. In small groups or pairs students to choose one or more of these poems to write their own response: in what ways does this poem engage you into the culture, identity and experiences of First Nations peoples?  
3. Small groups could choose one of the poems which specifically explore a First Nations person: Namatjira, Daisy Bindi, Bwalla the Hunter and Oh Trugganner!
• Research the person 
• Present a presentation to the class about the person and what aspects of the person are captured by Oodgeroo.
• What insights to the person’s experiences have you gained from this poem? 

An additional task could be to invite First Nations representatives to your school and ask about First Nations peoples who may have lived in your area and use this information to write your own poem.

Building student formal response skills 

Use traditional style essay questions to build response skills. Unpack the structural conventions of analytical writing with emphasis on the need to understand and interpret the question, to open paragraphs with strong topic sentences and include specific and detailed evidence from the poem to substantiate student response.

Possible questions:

• To what extent do the poems of Oodgeroo use a sense of place to engage readers with her key ideas?
• Effective poetry uses the power of images to engage the reader’s emotions and intellect. To what extent is this true of the poetry of Oodgeroo set for study?
• How does Oodgeroo’s poetry portray interesting ideas about culture? In your response, make detailed reference to at least TWO poems set for study.
• Explain how Oodgeroo Noonuccal’s poetry invites us into a different world and broadens our understanding of human experience. In your response, make detailed reference to at least TWO of the poems set for study.
• “It is the setting of Oodgeroo’s poems that has the most significant impact on the development of ideas”. Choose three poems which have a strong sense of setting to respond to this question.

Choice of presentation for group exploration.

In small groups students are to explore this idea: 

“It isn’t what you did in the past that will affect the present. It’s what you do in the present that will redeem the past and thereby change the future.”

Paulo Coelho from The Secret River program Sydney Theatre Company 

How have the texts you have explored helped you understand the past to help build capacity for the future?

• Choose your method of presentation:
  • PowerPoint
  • Prezi
  • YouTube video
  • Digital Essay
  • Feature Article with links and visuals
  • Opinion article with links and visuals
• Choose a selection of texts which must include:
  • 2 poems from My People
  • 2 visuals e.g. editorial cartoon, picture book, infographic, poster, short film or feature film
  • 2 nonfiction texts e.g. speech, news article, opinion article 
  • 1-2 fiction e.g. novel, short story

Any references must be acknowledged through footnotes and include a bibliography.

Relevant details in relation to the new English 7-10 syllabus

Text requirements: My People is a collection of poetry by Australian author Oodgeroo, who is an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. My People contains intercultural and diverse experiences and cultural, social and gender perspectives.
For more recommended texts suitable for Stage 5, explore our Year 9 texts and study guides and Year 10 texts and study guides.

Concepts could include Representation • Perspective • Connotation, imagery and symbol

Specific syllabus content points which would be addressed through exploration of this text: 

Relevant NSW English 7-10 Syllabus content

Reading, viewing and listening to texts | EN5-RVL-01

A student: uses a range of personal, creative and critical strategies to interpret complex texts

• Develop a deeper understanding of themes, ideas or attitudes by revisiting and reinterpreting texts to find new meaning
• Analyse the main ideas and thematic concerns represented in texts
• Investigate how layers of meaning are constructed in texts and how this shapes a reader’s understanding and engagement
• Clarify and justify personal responses to texts, explaining how aspects of the text, such as character, genre, tone, salience or voice, position a reader and influence these personal responses
• Analyse how the use of language forms and features in texts have the capacity to create multiple meanings
• Read increasingly complex texts that challenge thinking, pique interest, enhance enjoyment and provoke a personal response
• Engage in sustained and varied reading that presents increasingly diverse and complex perspectives and experiences, including those of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, and respond in a range of ways, including through extended written responses
• Consider how the social, cultural and ethical positions represented in texts represent, affirm or challenge views of the world
• Evaluate experiences of reading by sharing responses to texts
• Evaluate the ways reading texts help us understand ourselves and make connections to others and the world
• Reflect on how reading, viewing and listening to texts has informed and inspired learning
• Reflect on how an appreciation of texts can be enhanced through re-reading, and close or critical study
• Understand and reflect on the value of reading for personal growth and cultural richness
• Reflect on how reading promotes a broad and balanced understanding of the world and enables students to explore wider universal issues

Understanding and responding to texts A | EN5-URA-01

A student: analyses how meaning is created through the use and interpretation of increasingly complex language forms, features and structures 

Representation

• Analyse how contextual, creative and unconscious influences shape the composition, understanding and interpretation of all representations

Code and convention

• Use metalanguage effectively to analyse how meaning is constructed by linguistic and stylistic elements in texts
• Analyse how language forms, features and structures, specific or conventional to a text’s medium, context, purpose and audience, shape meaning, and experiment with this understanding through written, spoken, visual and multimodal responses

Connotation, imagery and symbol

• Analyse how figurative language and devices can be used to represent complex ideas, thoughts and feelings to contribute to larger patterns of meaning in texts, and experiment with this in own texts
• Analyse how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors use figurative language and devices to represent culture, identity and experience

Point of view

• Examine elements of focalisation, such as omniscience, limitations, indirect speech, tone, reliability and multiple narrators, and how these interact to shape perceptions of meaning in texts, and apply this in own texts

Narrative

• Analyse how narrative conventions vary across genres, modes, media and contexts and how they can be used to represent ideas and values and shape responses, and apply this understanding in own texts
• Explore how narratives can represent and shape personal and shared identities, values and experiences

Understanding and responding to texts B | EN5-URB-01

A student: evaluates how texts represent ideas and experiences, and how they can affirm or challenge values and attitudes 

Perspective and context

• Understand how the personal perspectives of audiences are a product of historical and cultural contexts
• Analyse how texts can be understood or interpreted from different perspectives, and experiment with this idea in own texts
• Evaluate how texts can position audiences to accept, challenge or reject particular perspectives of the world, and reflect on this in own texts
• Analyse how elements of an author’s personal, cultural and political contexts can shape their perspectives and representation of ideas, including form and purpose
• Explain how texts affirm or challenge established cultural attitudes and values in different contexts
• Appreciate how all communication is a product of cultural context 
• Explain how texts affirm or challenge established cultural attitudes and values in different contexts
• Appreciate the significance and value of expressions of cultural context in texts constructed using elements of languages and dialects, including Standard Australian English, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Languages, and Aboriginal English

Argument and authority

• Analyse how an engaging personal voice in texts can represent a perspective or argument and communicate a sense of authority, and experiment with these ideas in own texts

Style

• Analyse how the distinctive aesthetic qualities and stylistic features of a text can shape and be shaped by its purpose, and experiment with this in own texts
• Examine the way an author’s distinct personal style shapes meaning in their work

Understanding and responding to texts C

A student: investigates and explains ways of valuing texts and the relationships between them EN5-URC-01

• Examine how meaningful connections made between texts can enrich the experience and understanding of literature and culture

Expressing ideas and composing texts A

A student crafts personal, creative and critical texts for a range of audiences by experimenting with and controlling language forms and features to shape meaning EN5-ECA-0

• Select and adapt appropriate codes, conventions and structures to shape meaning when composing written texts that are analytical, informative, persuasive, discursive and/or imaginative
• Communicate complex information, ideas and viewpoints using purposeful verbal and/or nonverbal language, including gestures, to emphasise key points, enhance engagement and clarify meaning 
• Use the structural conventions of analytical writing purposefully, including a well-articulated and considered thesis, a sustained and cohesive progression of supporting points, and a rhetorically effective conclusion

Expressing ideas and composing texts B

A student uses processes of planning, monitoring, revising and reflecting to purposefully develop and refine composition of texts EN5-ECB-01

• Research, summarise, evaluate and synthesise information and perspectives from different sources to generate new ideas and create detailed and informed texts
• Develop an effective thesis for extended analytical and persuasive texts that is based on critical thinking about a text or topic
• Produce co-constructed complex texts to represent a diversity of ideas and values
• Select from a range of collaborative drafting strategies and feedback processes to improve clarity, meaning and effect in texts

(English K-10 Syllabus 2022 © NSW Education Standards Authority for and on behalf of the Crown in right of the State of New South Wales, 2023)

Connecting texts

First Nations’ poetry

First Nations’ fiction