Indigenous Poetry Unit STUDYGUIDE Jack Davis Poems Analysis Aboriginal Australia

Do you want your students to engage more intimately with Australian history and the Indigenous experience? Are you trying to generate more empathy and a more nuanced understanding of Aboriginal Australian culture?

Jack Davis' poetry is truly eye opening literature. He is able to underscore the tragedies that took place in Australia's past through an authentic voice, personal experiences and a spiritual connectedness. Yet, he tells his stories at times through sorrow, and at times through sarcasm and humour, but fundamentally through resilience and strength.

This resource took my lower to mixed ability class 5 weeks to complete (3-4 hours a week) and generated a lot of discussion throughout that time.

You can expect:

- Prediction activities

- Context (personal, historical, socio-political)

- Language analysis: Scaffolded guidance, language techniques and key questions included.

- Video links

- Discussion questions

- Information about Indigenous culture that is RELEVANT for each poem (I've been very selective about what to include here due to the time constraints of school contact hours)

- Writing tasks (with prompts)

This presentation helps take the class through FOUR of Jack Davis' most famous poems:

1. The First Born

2. Dispossession

3. The Black Tracker

4. The Mining Company's Hymn

29 slides (excluding title page) and plenty of access points to take you and your students beyond what's written on the PPT.

NOTE: I have several resources for Indigenous texts that pair really well with these lessons, please see here: Indigenous Literature: Critical Study BUNDLE 1