This post is a submission to the April 2011 Japan Blog Matsuri hosted by NihongoUp.
The Lost Blogs #8
A haiku is a Japanese poem written in 3 lines, following a 5-7-5 syllabus pattern. In one of my classes, we decided instead of doing the textbook material as usual, we would do a special lesson and write haiku. Our theme was “Autumn/Fall”, or “Goodbye, Summer”. First, we talked about poetry and gave the students some examples. The students worked for about 30 minutes to write and decorate their haiku, and then afterwards, we displayed them on the board and had volunteers read their poems out loud.
I wrote my English haiku examples following the 5-7-5 pattern, just as I had learned in grade school:
Long, long lazy days…
Relaxing, drinking iced tea…
I will miss summer.
Dear autumn, hello!
Cool weather makes me happy
Red leaves on the trees
My students wrote their haiku first in 5-7-5 format in Japanese, and then translated to English. The 5-7-5 pattern was lost, but the poems are still cute and meaningful. These are some of my favorites:
Hot day
have the air conditioner on at full blast
My stom-ach aches
It is fall
Do not faile the exam
It is Autumn
A little chilly
Only thinking
I want to eat pears
A refreshing breeze brow
Bear is busy
Collect bear fruit
Summer vacation（夏休み）
Ah… Summer vacation（アー夏休み）
Summer vacation（夏休み）
DIET!!
Can’t lose weight
This summer x_x
Chestnut, Japanese persimmon and saury
Eating No full stomach
Fall is the beast season for eating
The haiku lesson plan has been a success the two times we’ve done it, so I plan to use it again with my next batch of incoming students. It’s fun, relaxing, and lets them be creative. I like my classroom to be a creative space.
Haha, that’s cute. Doing them in English would be massively difficult, but I like them translated like that. Nice idea.
Thanks for your visit! I team-teach with a JTE (Japanese Teacher of English), so we kicked off the lesson first with an explanation in Japanese and read the students some examples of English haiku as well short poems that are not haiku but have similar effect. A few students jumped right in and tried to write their haiku in English, while most chose to write first in Japanese and then translate.
I cannot speak Japanese at all and I like to read Japanese poem like Haiku. I usually ask my beloved friends who know Japanese language to translate it for me. My students are enthusiastic whenever they learn English through poem. It is interesting to try the translation of this Haiku in my class.
Go for it!