Haiku

Tall noble cypress
Witnessing nature’s glory
Look up to the sky.

Devin Delahoussaye
1st place 3rd and 4th grades
LA Writes! 2008
North Street Elementary
New Iberia, LA

LESSON PLANS

For a Science Classroom


Lesson Plan for Devin Delahoussaye’s “Haiku”
by Cassie Seiple

Have students write haiku about Louisiana amphibians, or concepts like evaporation or erosion, whatever fits with your unity of study.

Alternatively, have students closely observe something in nature.

Students should make a sketch and take observational notes.

Students use those notes to compose a haiku thinking about how, if that blade of grass or cockroach were human, if might think and feel (keeping the subject a secret is optional).

Review the form (providing a 1/2 sheet handout with these directions can help many students compose):

first line – five syllables
second line – seven syllables
third line – five syllables

For an English Classroom


Lesson Plan for Devin Delahoussaye’s “Haiku”
by Cassie Seiple

For a Secondary English classroom:

This lesson can help students understand the power of word choice.

Have them draft one Haiku about any topic and then either revise it or write a second to improve on word choice.

You could also discuss personification as a literary device (the trees in Devin’s poem are “noble” and “look”) and invite students to also use personification in their Haiku if they are writing about non-human subjects.

This could also be a peer editing exercise where students in pairs help one another out by exploring various possibilities for word choice.

Student writers and peer-editors could make a list of words that do not fit the syllabic requirement and write a second poem using those words.

Then they could choose which worked best for that particular subject.

Lesson Plan for Devin Delahoussaye’s “Haiku”
by Cassie Seiple

For an Elementary English classroom

Use this as an opportunity to review syllabication.

Invite the class to practice counting syllables by clapping / tapping as you say words together.

Write a haiku together first.

An option for earlier grades is to compose several haiku as a class.

Write a series of concepts / nouns that you are dealing with in your class onto slips of paper.

Review the form (providing a 1/2 sheet handout with these directions can help many students compose):

first line – five syllables
second line – seven syllables
third line – five syllables

Finally, ask students to select one of the slips of paper with a noun.

Each student will write a haiku that describes the noun without referring to the topic by name.

Have students each read his/her haiku and then ask the class to guess the topic.

Alternatively, you could break students into pairs and have them guess a partner’s topic. In that case, you could ask partners with a difficult haiku to share theirs with the class.

For any Classroom

Lesson Plan for Devin Delahoussaye’s “Haiku”
by Cassie Seiple

Write a series of concepts / nouns that you are dealing with in your class onto slips of paper. These could be historical figures, places, events, and or concepts. This lesson is adaptable to any subject area so a concept could be anything you are studying from entropy in science to acute angles in geometry.

Read Devin’s Haiku and talk about the form and its effectiveness.

Consider these discussion questions:
What kind of information does Devin convey in the limited space provided?
What might be difficult about writing haiku?
What might be easier about writing haiku?

Review the form (providing a 1/2 sheet handout with these directions can help many students compose):

first line – five syllables
second line – seven syllables
third line – five syllables

Finally, ask students to select one of the slips of paper with a noun.

Each student will write a haiku that describes the noun without referring to the topic by name.

Have students each read his/her haiku and then ask the class to guess the topic.

Alternatively, you could break students into pairs and have them guess a partner’s topic. In that case, you could ask partners with a difficult haiku to share theirs with the class.

For an Art Classroom


Lesson Plan Devin Delahoussaye’s “Haiku”
by Margaret Simon

Already at a young age, Devin is a master haiku poet. Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry that has become popular for its simple form. The typical haiku has a line of 5 syllables, one of 7 syllables, and one of 5 syllables. Haiku is often about nature and provokes an image in nature through visual, sensory details. Devin’s poem does this beautifully. We, like the cypress, look up to the sky.

With your students read aloud this poem more than once.

Count the syllables, but more importantly, close your eyes and visualize the Louisiana bald cypress. If possible, show a picture of a cypress tree.

Have available pictures of nature.

Have students select a picture and make a list of descriptive words about the picture.

Haiku should be expressed in concrete images.

In a haiku, there is a comparison or a contrast. In Devin’s poem, he compares the cypress to a witness. Encourage students to compare or contrast in their own nature haiku.

Another activity that works well with the art of haiku is watercolor.

Have students create a watercolor painting of their vision of nature (either looking at a chosen photograph or working from their imagination).

Using calligraphy (another Japanese art), write the haiku on the painting. Display the haiku art work in the classroom.

For an Elementary Classroom


Lesson Plan Devin Delahoussaye’s “Haiku”
by Margaret Simon

Already at a young age, Devin is a master haiku poet. Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry that has become popular for its simple form. The typical haiku has a line of 5 syllables, one of 7 syllables, and one of 5 syllables. Haiku is often about nature and provokes an image in nature through visual, sensory details. Devin’s poem does this beautifully. We, like the cypress, look up to the sky.

With your students read aloud this poem more than once.

Count the syllables, but more importantly, close your eyes and visualize the Louisiana bald cypress. If possible, show a picture of a cypress tree.

Have available pictures of nature.

Have students select a picture and make a list of descriptive words about the picture.

Haiku should be expressed in concrete images.

In a haiku, there is a comparison or a contrast. In Devin’s poem, he compares the cypress to a witness. Encourage students to compare or contrast in their own nature haiku.

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