As I'm winding down the year with my Junior level English class, I am running out of steam. Amazingly enough, my four special needs students (all with some type of reading or writing disability) are begging me for free writing days. Well, OK! So today we did a lesson on Haiku. Here is my example and a few of their pieces. I did not make them stick to nature as a topic, but some chose to do that anyway.
My example:
end of the school year
no one can really focus
let's just write haiku
Student examples:
Missouri’s weather
is terribly bi-polar
forever changing
the color of black
deep dark place of no return
chilling scary place
Freezing ice and snow.
I like the snowy weather.
Building a snowman.
Lady Gaga
Be unique. It’s fun.
Quirky, a different thing.
It’s good to be weird.
After we got past the slight issue of counting syllables, I was pretty impressed. They commented that having some rules as to the structure actually helped them be more productive. I often feel the same way. So, to all the writers out there….give yourself some rules if you are stuck. You might find yourself flying across the page again. And to all of my teacher friends, let them do some creative writing if you need a little pick-me-up, you may be surprised at what they really do have in them.
