Lesson Plan: Writing Haiku
Author: B. Wu, Murry Bergtraum HS, New York, NY
Grade Level: 9-12
Subject: English
Objectives: The students will
Haiku by Basho
Within plum orchard,
Sturdy oak takes no notice
Of flowering blooms.
The moon glows the same:
It is the drifting cloud forms
Make it seem to change.
Yellow rose petals
Drop one-by-one in silence:
Roar of waterfall.
Haiku Poems by Richard Wright
I am nobody
A red sinking autumn sun
Took my name away
Make up you mind snail!
You are half inside your house
And halfway out!
In the falling snow
A laughing boy holds out his palm
Until they are white
Keep straight down this block'
Then turn right where you will find
A peach tree blooming
The spring lingers on
In the scent of a damp log
Rotting in the sun
Whose town did you leave
O wild and drowning spring rain
And where do you go?
The crow flew so fast
That he left his lonely caw
Behind in the field
Motivation: Wring before reading
To help students appreciate the restrictive form of Haiku, challenge them to the following exercise: Have each student think of an animal or object, such as a dog or a telephone. Then have them write as many adjectives as possible to describe the thing. The first adjective must have one syllable, the second adjective two, and so on.
Reading and Response:
Type of poetry; Speaker and Word choice; Sound; Imagery, Figurative Language-personification, simile, metaphor.
Enrichment and Extension:
Notes for the lesson:
Haiku- In Japanese, a poem of about 17 syllables.
To me, finding what gives the haiku its essence is what is most important in its study. Sure, everyone knows about the 5-7-5 structure and the inclusion of a seasonal reference, but these seem secondary when one looks at what makes the haiku different from other poetic forms. And that is called the "haiku moment."
Haiku Moment: It seems easiest to liken haiku to a photograph, which captures a moment in time. A pure photograph describes a scene, and this description causes an emotional response in its viewer. There is no caption on the photograph that tells us what emotional response we are to take from it. It is instead a simple moment in time, unencumbered.
Haiku is the same thing. When a butterfly lands upon an open flower, what does the haiku poet take from this? The same thing that his reader will take from it when he describes the moment in verse. But he trusts his reader to sense the same emotion from his accurate description of the scene. He does not need to say "How beautiful!" in reference to the moment, because his words should evoke the correct response in his reader.
This type of art form is seen often in Japan, from the careful skill of Japanese flower arranging (ikebana), to the care in the presentation of given gifts. Food preparation is another art form which utilizes the same essence of beauty within a moment of time. Colors, shapes and textures and of course the sensation of taste, must all be taken into account, to be both harmonious and contrasting.
Haiku follows the same pattern as these examples. It captures a moment, describing objects within the frame, and the beauty is gleaned from the emotions evoked from such a presentation. Perhaps the most famous haiku poet, Basho, said, "The haiku that reveals seventy to eighty percent of its subject is good. Those that reveal fifty to sixty percent we never tire of." What this tells us is that the nature of haiku is in letting the reader's response finish the poem.
I've included a few links to some other websites. These in turn have larger numbers of haiku links, saving me the trouble of listing a lot of them.