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17 Haiku
Type of activity Atthe end of the time limit, put the haiku up on the
brainstorming wall. Students should now walk round, reading
imaginative stimulus: poems them all and trying to guess what the topic is.
making the familiar strange
audience and context guessing Examples of haiku
Functions practised SUMMER grasses-
describing objects All that remains
·describing feelings Of soldiers' visions.
Usenil. language SPRING:
adjectives for place and object description A hill without a name
Veiled in morning mist.
Lexical areas
unspecifiable Oouds now and then
Giving men relief
From moon-viewing.
How to use the activity
The winds of autumn
Copy the Topic cards and cut them up . Blow: yet still green
Choose an object (e .g . a fruit, a flower) or a word The chestnut husks.
withmanyassociations (e.g. autumn, fire, mother) . You say one word
Ask students to provide as many words as they can And lips are ~ed
connected with this word, and write them up on the By autumn's wind.
board in no particular order. With the word A flash oflightning:
'autumn' for example, you could end up with a Into the gloom
board looking somethlng like this: Goes the heron's err.
brown sad colder mist Matsuo Basho
du1l football rain
leaves colours bonfues
Ask each student to choose the ten or twelve words
they like best, which to them are most strongly
associated with the subject.
Introduce the idea of a haiku. Some examples are
given below. The importantidea is the brevity and
the way the essence of the subject is conveyed in the
. three line structure: short-long-short, not the
precise number of syllables. How~ver, you may
have a class who find the idea of the 5-7-5 syllable
lines a chailenge, so don't discourage them if they
want to try.
With the whole class, construct a haiku, using some
of the words and ideas on the board, asking for
suggestions from the students, and writing them on
the board. There may be disagreement, and
alternative versions produced. Try to get the
students to say why they think one version or
another is better, or means more to them.
Now divide the class into small groups of not more
than three students . Give each group a different
Topic card, or let them choose their own topic.
Set a time limit. Ask students to write as many haiku
as they can in the time allowed. They should write
them on separate pieces of paper, without giving a
title. · ·

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17 HAIKU (Topic cards) ·.
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spring summer autumn I winter
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night I day I rain I sun
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wind I snow morning I afternoon I
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sunrise I sunset I water I fire
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1 I I
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1 I 1 mother
earth moon sea
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father I friend I tree : home I
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