There are, as I have said in previous posts, a couple of different ways to approach the selection of related material for Module C. This is true also for Peter Carey’s The True History of the Kelly Gang (which, by the way, I think is quite a difficult text) in the History and Memory elective.
Approach One: Stick to Ned, his gang and 19th Century Victoria
Some other texts that would work for this approach are:
Gregor Jordan’s 2003 film Ned Kelly. It has Heath Ledger, it has Orlando Bloom and it opens with a scene which it represents as being Ned Kelly’s personal memory. What more could you want?
The Jerilderie Letter. This link is to the State Library of Victoria page on this artefact/text. You can find the full text of the letter (I think this is also reproduced in the novel). There are some other text links from this page that also look interesting.
Stringybark Creek. Ballads are interesting because they have the status of being oral history but are actually usually quite recent. This one supposedly comes from the Kelly era and the story goes that people caught singing it could be fined up to five pounds.
And while we’re on songs:
For a broader approach, I suggest looking at the National Museum of Australia’s webpage about their current exhibition Not Just Ned: A True History of the Irish in Australia. Its appropriation of Carey’s title is deliberate. Like the Smithsonian site (another core text for this module and elective) this site includes personal stories as well as official history. Websites are brilliant to analyse because of their multimodal nature.
Approach Two: Explore other Historical Personalities, Events and Situations
For example:
Constitutional Crisis 1975
Situation: The Whitlam government was elected in 1972 with a small majority in the House while the Senate was controlled by the Opposition. In 1975 the Opposition used its Senate majority to block supply, effectively shutting down the government and causing a constitutional crisis.
Personalities: Gough Whitlam, Prime Minister; Sir John Kerr, Governor General; Malcolm Fraser, leader of the Opposition.
Event: The sacking of Gough Whitlam by Sir John Kerr on November 11 1975.
Texts:
Whitlam’s Speech This link to an audio extract of the speech at Australian Screen Online includes curators notes and links to other visual and audio texts.
Whitlam Dismissal Online This site contains links to songs, official documents and new clippings about the situation, event and personalities. There is also a sound and picture archives.
Jeff’s Cartoons Political cartoons from 1975.
Hi Mrs Langford,
so your second text can still be about The Kelly Gang?
Hi Jen,
Unless your school has specific requrements they want you to follow, there’s no reason why you’re texts can’t all be on the Kelly Gang for Module C. What’s important is that they are different text types and that they have interesting ideas about History and Memory.
Cheers,
Mrs L.