A Haiku Journey: Using Five Senses to Observe and Create Poetry By Michael Stone As a Montessori teacher, teaching in a multi-age classroom of six through nine year olds, I try to find as many ways as possible to blend ideas and activities across curriculum lines, especially involving the Language Arts. One very successful blending has been through what my co-teacher, Marlane Bottino, and I call “A Haiku Journey”—a way to record observations and details of Nature in an almost romantic form, haiku poetry. The Introduction- Basic History and Form of Haiku Haiku is a form of poetry with Japanese origins, a combination of 15th Century poetry called “renga” (poetry created by different poets adding verses to one poem, until it was complete, usually with 100 verses total. Each line alternated using 17 and 14 syllables) and 16th Century “haikai” (humorous poetry, often written with risque subthemes and involving a play on words). Poets often presented just the first verses of these poems, called “hakku” which in turn became the origins of “haiku” as we know it today. Haiku is traditionally written about nature, and its content represents a moment of observation. The most common form found in English has 17 syllables, with lines of 5-7-5 syllables respectively. Because haiku is brief, it should invoke a feeling, rather than telling the reader how to feel.
Haiku should describe a scene which causes the reader to have an emotional response, and should tell about something without exactly naming what that something is. For example, if I were writing about lilacs, I might write, purple fragrance blooms, which may invoke the image of a lilac blossom in the reader’s mind, without actually naming the flower. There are many different forms of haiku, but in our classroom, we often write a form called “What? Where? When?” haiku, in which the students write a poem, with each line answering one of those questions. When students read the final draft, they should be able to tell which line of a poem answers where something happened, what it was, and when it happened. Using Your Senses Sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste. The five senses. We use them all the time, but often don’t think about them as separate entities. On the haiku journey, that all changes because the children try to focus on one sense at a time. What words or phrases can you write down that describe what you are looking at? When you listen to this, what does it make you think of? Where does it take you? What does that texture remind you of? That smell? I find that when I write haiku, memories and moments in time come rushing back to me. When the children write haiku, I am always amazed at what they describe, and I suspect that you will be, too.
The Journey- Background and Preparation We usually begin our journey by reading Grass Sandals: The Travels of Basho, written by Dawnine Spivak and illustrated by Demi (ISBN 0-689-80776-7) to the class. Then we teach the basics of writing haiku and its history. We talk about the five senses and syllabication, giving lots of examples of each. This might go on for a number of lessons, making sure that the children can identify the five senses and use describing words that involve them, and understand how to break words into syllables. Syllabication often requires lots of practice, especially with the younger students. By the time of the actual haiku journey, you want the children to have a good grasp of all of both these concepts. We bring objects to the lesson, practice jotting down notes, while thinking about What? When? Where? and then together write sample haiku together. This may go on for a number of days and lessons, depending on how quickly the majority of the group understands what we are doing. Prior to the actual journey, my co-teacher and I decide on a theme, and on how many station we will need to set up. This will be determined by the number of students (and teachers) that will be taking the journey. We divide the number of stations by the five senses, and then think about
what objects we would like to gather for each location. For example, for ten participants, we try to have two stations set up that will appeal to each of the five senses. We also make indicator cards that show an illustration of an ear, lips, fingers, eyes, and nose that we put at each station so the children know which sense to focus on in that location.
The Journey Begins For our Journey, the theme was Spring. Below are some suggestions, but you will think of many other possibilities as you reflect on each sense and how they relate to your theme.
Station: Sight ! A bouquet of spring flowers ! Packets of garden seeds
Station: Hearing ! A recording of Flight of the Bumblebees by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - (with headphones) ! A rain stick
Station: Taste ! Peppermint tea in a small pot; teacups ! Clover honey; spoons
Station: Touch ! Garden soil in a pot ! Leaves or flower petals from different plants, especially those with interesting textures
Station: Smell ! Fresh herb leaves (mint, rosemary, sage, parsley, thyme) ! Rosa rugosa (Beach Rose) blossoms The children are given sheets of paper that have the station numbers written on them, clipboards, and pencils. Everyone is sent to their first station, and we ring a small chime to indicate that they should start making their observations and writing them down. Some children will write single words; others will write phrases. A few children might actually try to write a haiku at this point, but we encourage them to simply write words or
phrases that come to them when they experience each station. We will focus on writing the haiku after the journey, using the notes that they have taken. Each child remains at a station for 3-5 minutes, the chime rings again, and everyone moves to the next station in line. This process continues until everyone has had a chance to experience each of the stations. At that time, we usually ask the children to look over their notes, and give them a chance to revisit one or two of the stations that they were particularly drawn to. These are usually the stations that provide the most interest for one reason or another to a particular child, and will provide the inspiration for writing their best haiku. Next comes the actual writing of haiku. We encourage the children to write at least one haiku, choosing from their notes a station that really appealed to them. Many of the children will go immediately to writing some amazing haiku; others will need some gentle nudging. You will hear the kids reading their poems to each other and trying to find which line answers the What? Where? When? questions. Once the children think they have finished a haiku, we often ask them to look at the words they used to see if there are still other revisions; perhaps more descriptive words could be used that will sound better in their poems. The line on a hot, bright summer day might become on a sun-filled yellow day. A subtle difference, but so much more descriptive. We find that once the children begin writing haiku from their observations, they often can’t stop, and all of a sudden they are filling pages with illustrations and poetry!
The Journey Ends- The Final Product Once the haiku is written, there are endless ways to present or display them. We sometimes have the children make individual haiku booklets bound with twigs and string, or we make group booklets or posters that highlight the work of the class together. One of my favorite presentations is to have the children choose what they think is their best haiku, and write and illustrate it on a piece of cardboard. After we laminate the poem and punch a hole to tie a string or ribbon to it, we take all the poems outside and hang them from a tree in our school yard. It is a wondrous sight to see this amazing work swing and spin lightly in a passing breeze, as parents and visitors move from branch to branch quietly reading their children’s poetry! A haiku journey Capturing our children’s thoughts Moments on paper
