Seasonal Haiku: Writing Poems to Celebrate Any Season

Overview

From Theory to Practice

OVERVIEW

In this three-part lesson, students write and illustrate haiku depicting seasonal images. First they use their observation skills, real-world knowledge, and knowledge of parts of speech to help them create seasonal word charts. They then listen to and read samples of haiku to identify haiku criteria, followed by a writing session where they create haiku that depict seasonal images. Finally, they publish their poetry mounted on colorful backgrounds that illustrate the images in their poems.

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FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

Haiku usually depict an image from nature rather than an action and facilitate the reader's reflection on nature. Traditionally, they follow a three line, 5-7-5 syllable format, although that restriction has been altered in recent years.(Cheney, 79) Today, one may find haiku that are only one line, or in which the syllable pattern has been shortened or lengthened. For this lesson, using syllabication is an objective, so adhering to the 5-7-5 pattern is necessary.

This lesson inherently involves restrictions of convention that could hinder some students' creative use of descriptive language. For that reason, it may be best to introduce haiku-writing to students after they have had other experiences in using creative, sensory language in various ways.

Further Reading

Cheney, Matthew. "Expanding Vision: Teaching Haiku." English Journal 91.3 (January 2000): 79-83.

Van Den Heuvel, Cor. 1986. The Haiku Anthology. Touchstone

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