Can You Haiku?

Introduction

Haiku show us the world in a water drop, providing a tiny lens through which to glimpse the miracle and mystery of life. Combining close observation with a moment of reflection, this simple yet highly sophisticated form of poetry can help sharpen students' response to language and enhance their powers of self-expression. In this lesson, students learn the rules and conventions of haiku, study examples by Japanese masters, and create haiku of their own.

Learning Objectives

Guiding Question:

Preparing to Teach this Lesson

• This lesson plan consists of four learning activities that you can use together as a unit or adapt separately to your curricular needs.
  
  
• Review the suggested activities, then download and duplicate any online materials you will need. If desired, you can bookmark specific web pages so that students can access relevant online materials directly. (See Selected EDSITEment Links for a guide to locating online materials.)



• For guidance on talking about and interpreting haiku, explore the "Haiku by Basho" section of the AskAsia website, an interactive introduction to this seventeenth century master who pioneered the haiku tradition, and the Haiku for People website, which takes a more contemporary approach, celebrating haiku's development into a form of poetry practiced around the world.

Suggested Activities

Lesson 1: Reading Haiku
Lesson 2: The Rules of Haiku
Lesson 3: Haiku Warm-Up
Writing Haiku

Lesson 1 Reading Haiku

Provide students with a selection of haiku from those available through the AskAsia website at Haiku by Basho and Haiku for People. Include both classic and contemporary examples in your selection. Have members of the class read each poem aloud and ask students to comment on similarities they notice among them. Through this discussion, help students recognize that haiku are:

• Very short: just three lines usually fewer than twenty syllables long.
  
• Descriptive: most haiku focus sharply on a detail of nature or everyday life.
  
• Personal: most haiku express a reaction to or reflection on what is described.
  
• Divided into two parts: as they read haiku aloud, students should find that each includes a turning point, often marked by a dash or colon, where the poet shifts from description to reflection, or shifts from close-up to a broader perspective.

Lesson 2 The Rules of Haiku

Drawing on the students' observations, provide an outline of the main rules for writing haiku, as explained at Haiku by Basho and Haiku for People:

• Form: Traditional Japanese haiku have seventeen syllables divided into three lines of five syllables, seven syllables, and five syllables respectively. These syllable counts are often ignored when haiku are written in other languages, but the basic form of three short lines, with the middle line slightly longer than the other two, is usually observed.

• Structure: Haiku divide into two parts, with a break coming after the first or second line, so that the poem seems to make two separate statements that are related in some unexpected or indirect way. In Japanese, this break is marked by what haiku poets call a "cutting word." In English and other languages, the break is often marked by punctuation. This two-part structure is important to the poetic effect of a haiku, prompting a sense of discovery as one reads or a feeling of sudden insight.

• Language: Haiku should include what Japanese poets call a kigo -- a word that gives the reader a clue to the season being described. The kigo can be the name of a season (autumn, winter) or a subtler clue, such as a reference to the harvest or new fallen snow. Through the years, certain signs of the seasons have become conventional in Japanese haiku: cherry blossoms are a kigo for spring, mosquitoes a kigo for summer. Sometimes, too, the kigo will refer to an individual moment in the natural cycle, such as dawn or moonrise, without reference to a particular season. The kigo is also important to the haiku's effect, anchoring the experience it describes in a poetic here and now that helps sharpen the imaginative focus.

• Subject: Haiku present a snapshot of everyday experience, revealing an unsuspected significance in a detail of nature or human life. Haiku poets find their subject matter in the world around them, not in ancient legends or exotic fantasies. They write for a popular audience and give their audience a new way to look at things they have probably overlooked in the past.

  This same point of view can be found in traditional Japanese woodblock prints (called "ukiyo-e"), which distill a timeless beauty from the constantly shifting scene of daily life. For examples of woodblock prints that can help students visualize the world of haiku, visit the Ukiyo-e Museum of the Nagoya Broadcast Network, accessible through the Teaching (and Learning) About Japan website on EDSITEment, and browse the galleries called "Rain and Snow" and "A Sense of Journey." In each gallery, click on the small image to view a larger version with an interpretative caption, then click the larger version to view the image at maximum size.

Lesson 3 Haiku Warm-Up

Writing Haiku Finally, have students write a haiku based on some personal experience, using at least one of the words they have brainstormed in class. Pair students to edit and suggest improvements to one another's work, then hold an in-class haiku festival, having each student read his or her poem aloud. Although haiku do not traditionally have titles, you might invite students to suggest titles for their classmates' work as a way to encourage discussion and a constructive atmosphere of critical response.

Extending the Lesson