English—Creating Suspense in Fiction and Nonfiction

Activity Eight: Add a Poem

Activity Eight: Add a Poem
I. Annotate the poem “The Shark” by E. J. Pratt and pay special attention to how the shark is
A. Annotate the poem “The Shark” by E. J. Pratt.
characterized.

TheShark
The Shark
byE.E.J.J.Pratt
by Pratt

He seemed to know the harbour;

So leisurely he swam;
His fin,
Like a piece of sheet-iron
5 Three-cornered,
And with knife-edge,
Stirred not a bubble
As it moved
With its base-line on the water.

10 His body was tubular

And tapered
And smoke-blue,
And as he passed the wharf
He turned,
15 And snapped at a flat-fish
That was dead and floating.
And I saw the flash of a white throat,
And a double row of white teeth,
And eyes of metallic grey,
20 Hard and narrow and slit.

Then out of the harbour,

With that three-cornered fin
Shearing without a bubble the water
Lithely
25 Leisurely,
He swam—
That strange fish,
Tubular, tapered, smoke-blue,
Part vulture, part wolf,
30 Part neither—for his blood was cold.

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English—Creating Suspense in Fiction and Nonfiction

II. Pair “The Shark” poem with the Unbroken passage in Activity Five. Compare and contrast the
characterization of the shark in both passages.

1. How does Pratt characterize the shark in the poem?

Physical Characteristics Attitude

How does Hillenbrand characterize the sharks in the prose passage?

Physical Characteristics Attitude

Where are the descriptions similar? different? Create a Venn diagram that illustrates where the descriptions
are the same and where they are different.

HILLENBRAND  PRATT

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 English—Creating Suspense in Fiction and Nonfiction

Write a paragraph with a topic sentence followed by evidence and commentary that compares and contrasts
at least one physical and one mental attribute of the sharks as characterized by Hillenbrand and Pratt.

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English—Creating Suspense in Fiction and Nonfiction

Extension Activity: Add a Painting

This oil painting is entitled Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley (1778), and it depicts a shark
attack near Cuba.

I. Analyze the painting as a visual text and record your observations in the chart below.

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 English—Creating Suspense in Fiction and Nonfiction

Elements of Art and Design

Balance
Is the painting symmetrical or asymmetrical?
● from left to right
● from top to bottom
Proportion
What is the painter’s focus?
How does the focus compare to the other
elements of the painting?

Color
What are the prominent colors in the painting?

How do the colors reflect the painting’s mood?

What does the painter use to provide contrast

or variety to the painting?

Perspective
From what perspective do we see the activity?

What/where does your eye focus first?

Unity
What pulls the components of the painting
together as a unified story?

Emphasis
Divide the painting into quadrants:
● upper left
● upper right
● lower left
● lower right
What is the emphasis in each quadrant?

Sensory Images
What images are used to portray
● sight
● sound
● smell
● taste
● touch

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English—Creating Suspense in Fiction and Nonfiction

II. Look back over the two prose passages, the poem, and the painting. Use the four-column chart to
compare and contrast the sharks, the characters, and the settings of the Unbroken passage, the Pratt
poem, the painting, and The Old Man and the Sea passage.
The Old Man and the Watson and the
Traits Unbroken “The Shark”
Sea Shark
Shark(s)

Characters

Setting

Tone/Mood

III. Does the visual text change your impressions of the shark in any of the written texts? Why or why not?

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