Teaching in a Pandemic: Haiku

This is a short article for parents about teaching haiku writing to young students. Haiku writing was one of the lessons I taught today from the English section of the Complete Canadian Curriculum 3 Guide.

The guide is not necessary for this lesson as I have included everything you need to know to teach the concepts needed for children to write this style of poem.

Isoavara (her online name), age 8, wrote:

A Spring Day

The water is cold

The sun outside is splendid

Let us go out now.

When teaching young elementary school children how to write a haiku I focus on a few things:

1. The structure of the poem. A haiku is typically made up of three lines. The first line is 5 syllables, the second line is 7 syllables and the third line is 5 syllables. Keep it as simple as that.

2. Syllables. This is a great opportunity, and necessary for the haiku, to teach what a syllable is. We broke up words into their sound segments. In school I remember clapping after each segment but you can also express this concept visually with lines as shown:

splen/did

wa/ter

Ja/pa/nese

frog/

3. Theme. The third teaching opportunity I found was concerning the theme or topic. In this case we chose our recent trip to the beach. Children may need help choosing and sticking with an idea or theme for their haiku. If they come up with 3 lines expressing very disjointed ideas, no need to worry, haiku’s often juxtapose ideas. This concept can get complicated for younger students so I also recommend they use those 5 and 7 syllable lines to make new haiku’s.

4. Gratitude. When the haiku is finished, it’s time for praise. Your student is now technically a Poet. So congratulate them on their work and encourage them to write more poems in the future. This is a great way to also practice their writing and can be a change from other writing and reading comprehension assignments. Most adults today don’t create anything like this because at some point their creativity was crushed. So for the sake of humanity, please encourage your little students anytime they are creating something.

5. Higher Level. For older students I would recommend reading both the works of traditional Japanese masters and modern haiku’s. Can you understand and describe the differences? What stylistic changes are made? Ask your older student’s to compare and contrast traditional haiku’s with Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro”. Can they write a haiku in the traditional style? Can they write a haiku on a very modern/current topic or add a twist that challenges convention?

At the very least I hope this article helps you get through another few hours of being trapped inside trying to home school your children. But I also hope this inspires adults and students alike to spend a moment of time using language to express thoughts and feelings in a very beautiful and meditative way.

What went well? What did I miss? Does this article need to be longer or shorter? Please share with me your thoughts, feedback and haiku’s.

Take Care!