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Death of a whale
When the mouse died, there was a sort of pity:
the tiny, delicate creature made for grief.
Yesterday, instead, the dead whale on the reef
drew an excited multitude to the jetty.
How must a whale die to wring a tear?
Lugubrious death of a whale: the big
feast for the gulls and sharks; the tug
of the tide simulating life still there,
until the air, polluted, swings this way
like a door ajar from a slaughterhouse.
Pooh! pooh! spare us, give us the death of a mouse
by its tiny hole; not this in our lovely bay.
—Sorry, we are, too, when a child dies;
but at the immolation of a race, who cries?
by John Blight from Pattern and Voice compiled by
John and Dorothy Colmer (Macmillan Australia)
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Teaching notes for
Death of a Whale
Text form:
Medium:
Field:
Tenor:
Mode:
OTHER
Sonnet
Book
The death of a whale
Poet to general audience
General
RESOURCES
Access to research information about whales.
Dictionaries.
Drawing materials.
INTRODUCING
THE UNIT
Explain to students that often we need to bring a great
deal of information about the field or subject to our
understanding of the words and language structures of a
poem.
Explain to students that sonnets are very economical
poems as they pack a great deal of meaning into a very
tight form. Encourage students to talk about the
rhyming words and scheme of this sonnet, and the
connections between their meanings. Point out the
rhyming couplet at the end of the sonnet.
STORYBOARD
After reading the poem, ask students to discuss their first
impressions. Help them to visualise the scene by finding
pictures of a jetty and beach and ask them to create a
storyboard focusing on the lines that are included in the
frames. Discuss the fact that at times some whales beach
themselves and encourage students to think about how
the whale in this poem became beached. Some students
may have an understanding of this behaviour.
CREATING
WATCH
The students may not have encountered some of the
words in the poem. Encourage them to look up the
meanings, especially of words like lugubrious.
PERSONAL
RESPONSE
Encourage students to reread the poem both aloud and
silently. Encourage them to talk about their view of the
poem and whether this has changed from their first
reading. Identify the main ideas that Blight is
communicating.Think about situations in the world,
both in the past and in the present, where there has
been an attempt to wipe out a whole race. Help them
to develop their ideas and to record them in their
workbooks.
LET’S
TALK ABOUT IT!
Encourage students to think about the strong contrasts
that the poet uses in these images.They should consider
the contrasts in size and how these different sizes affect
the way that we feel about the whale and the mouse.
Ask them to write their ideas which will be used to find
other layers of meaning in the poem. Explore why a
poet might ask the reader questions and think about a
range of possible answers to the questions. Share and
discuss these ideas.
WRITE
YOUR OWN POEM
Encourage students to develop their own poems. Help
them to identify an issue that evokes strong emotions
and think about how they feel about it. Help them to
develop visual images for their feelings and to find the
words and phrases that best capture their visual images.
Encourage them to think about rhyming words that will
help communicate their feelings.
A DESCRIPTION
Help students to identify the words that describe
whales.Talk about how these words help to place the
noun in a particular category or describe it more
precisely. Help students to decide if they are nouns or
adjectives.
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WORD
FOLLOW-UP/EXTENSION
Have students research other areas of the world where
one race has attempted to wipe out another, for
example the Holocaust, Bosnia and Rwanda.
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Name _________________________________________ Date _______________
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Death of a Whale
Storyboard
This poem tells about a whale which beached itself and the effects that this had
on the people who came to view it. Create a storyboard for the poem by
drawing pictures to match the captions.
2.
1.
The dead whale on the reef drew an
excited multitude to the jetty.
3.
The big feast for the gulls
and sharks;
4.
The tug of the tide simulating life
still there,
The air, polluted swings this way like
a door ajar from a slaughterhouse.
6.
5.
Not this in our lovely bay.
Pooh! pooh! spare us,
NA 4.2 NSW 3.3 Considers aspects of context, purpose and audience when speaking and listening and discusses ways in which spoken language differs from written.
NA 4.5 NSW 3.5 Reads an extensive range of texts with fairly complex structures and features, justifying own interpretation of ideas, information and events
in the response to themes and issues.
NA 4.8a NSW 3.6 Selects a range of strategies appropriate for the texts being read.
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Name _________________________________________ Date _______________
Death of a Whale
Creating a description
In this poem, and from your general reading, you should
have come across noun groups that are used to describe
and classify whales, e.g. large, humpback whale. List these words.
Talk in a group about some of these words and the information that they give about
whales.
Word watch
List the words from the poem that you find interesting or unusual. Look up each word
in a dictionary and write its meaning in the table. Talk with a partner about your view
Word
Dictionary meaning
Meaning in poem
NA 4.1 NSW 3.1 Communicates and interacts confidently for a range of purposes and a variety of audiences to express well developed, well organised ideas
dealing with more challenging topics.
NA 4.7 NSW 3.8 Identifies the structures of different texts and with assistance discusses the grammatical structures and features that shape readersí and
listenersí understanding of texts.
NA 4.11 NSW 3.14 Discusses and evaluates how texts have been constructed to achieve their purpose and shape readers’ and viewers’ understandings using
grammatical features and structures.
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Death of a Whale
Personal response
When we reread poems we often see another level of meaning, or a different
viewpoint, from the one we saw in an earlier reading. Reread this poem. Read it
aloud listening to the sounds, and silently hearing the echoes. Why has the poet used
this particular rhyming scheme? What effect does it have? Write in the space below the
ideas that you think the poet is communicating and how he feels about these ideas.
Let’s talk about it!
Talk with a partner about the following questions. Write your conclusions
on the lines.
Why do you think the poet contrasts the size of the whale and the mouse?
The poet also contrasts a child with a race. What do you think the poet is
communicating here?
The poet asks the reader two questions. What are these questions? What answer do you
think he wants to each question? What answer would you give to each question?
NA 4.3 NSW 3.4 Controls and evaluates structures and features of spoken language. Interprets meaning and develops and presents ideas and information in familiar surroundings.
NA 4.5 NSW 3.5 Reads an extensive range of texts with fairly complex structures and features, justifying own interpretation of ideas, information and events in the
response to themes and issues.
NA 4.9 NSW 3.9 Writes well structured literary and factual texts using challenging topics, ideas and issues for a variety of purposes and audiences.
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