The memorable scene where Kahu saves the whale is great for two reasons: the content of the story is wonderful; the means of telling the story serves the content well. Here, at the final destination of our Whale Rider WebQuest, we will be looking at the means with which the author conveys intimacy: namely through poetry, or song. Ihimaera dictates the songs of the whale as the connection is made between the ancient whale and Kahu. What is it about poetry and song that stirs our emotions and implies a connection? How can we use this to our advantage in our own writing?

For this assignment, you will be identifying a favorite song.

• What emotions does this song convey?
• Looking only at the lyrics, how does the song use language to set a mood?

Now watch the following Slam Poetry:

• What similarities does this share with your song lyrics? What's different?

The author uses a lot of biblical allusion here (listen to the part about Jericho).

• What is the author trying to tell us by using this allusion? 
• Is there any knowledge you would need to possess to understand this?

Your assignment is to create your own poem.  You can use any format you choose, but there are two requirements:

1. You must convey a distinct emotion.
2. You must allude to another existing body of work to help us understand your intention.  This can be textual, musical, cinematic, or artistic in nature.  
   

Students will experience cultural, visual, and emotional literacy through this lesson. 

•  Cultural:  students must possess a certain cultural literacy to successfully understand the slam poet.  Some may experience a feeling of confusion, as they never learned biblical stories and therefore cannot comprehend the poem.
• Visual:  students gain experience making meaning from visual, as opposed to textual sources.
• Emotional:  students must learn to identify and communicate their emotions in poetic form. 
  
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