Teachers & Writers Collaborative
Bring in packet of 15-20 haiku, enough copies for each student to have one. Include the haiku used in this lesson, or substitute them with others you find.
Ask students to read one of Basho’s most famous haiku:
on the dead branch
a crow settles—
autumn evening
Ask students to describe the scene. Elicit as many responses as possible. Emphasise that there is no “correct answer.” These poems are subjective and open to a wide range of interpretation. (Poems are different from math equations!)
Ask: What colors do you see in the scene? What do you hear? What feeling do you get from the haiku? Read the haiku again, and note how there are no feelings expressed directly in the haiku. Emphasize the importance of this—haikus describe things, not feelings. Haikus always suggest a feeling without saying it directly.
Read another of Basho’s haiku:
the old pond—
a frog jumps in
plunk!
Elicit responses to the same questions posed above: scene, colors, feelings.
Continue this process and discuss with other haiku. (See Whitehouse’s article for more haiku suggestions, or use other published versions.) Introduce the question of “how”: “How does the author make us feel these things, see and hear these things?”
Emphasize that haiku is about specific objects or situations, and about the ordinary instead of the extraordinary.
Introduce principles of haiku: 5-7-5 not important. Active verbs and nouns are important. Focusing on a specific scene or thing is important. Punctuation not important. Most important: try to use the fewest words possible to express the most; suggest feelings instead of stating them. Try to write as many haiku as possible—and not worry because it’ll get easier as the students write more.
Set children loose on paper to write their own haiku.
For writing-blocked children, ask them to imagine a scene. Ask questions to help them form a very precise vision. If this is not enough to spark the child, then suggest a word or an image.
Please read Anne Whitehouse’s article “Haiku—The Discipline of Language” for the full text, for examples of student writing generated by this exercise, and for more haiku examples to use in class.
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