Abstract:

"In recent years, Haiku has become a widely adopted part of the language arts curriculum, particularly at the elementary level. Educators appreciate the simplicity and brevity of haiku as a poetic form that young students can grasp fairly easily and therefore express themselves readily. However, this focus on form has often been to the exclusion of a deeper understanding of the artistic themes and cultural values found in Japanese literature which are an equally central part of the rich tradition of haiku poetry. This secondary level unit seeks to remedy this disparity. For the Japanese, haiku has been a very personal, meaningful form of self-expression, at the same time one which is molded according to certain conventions inherited from the past. By helping students understand how haiku developed within Japanese culture, we hope that their own haiku-writing will be enriched and that they will come to appreciate more fully this unique poetic form. Taking into account these general concerns, the specific goal of this unit is to stimulate the creative energies of secondary level students by instilling awareness of the natural environment through haiku poetry. In order to accomplish this, Japanese aesthetic principles (especially those of simplicity and suggestion) will be examined as they apply to haiku and other art forms... This unit assumes that neither the teacher nor the students have extensive background in Japanese haiku." --http://spice.stanford.edu || Table of Contents available at http://iis-db.stanford.edu/pubs/10105/Haiku_Moment_Secondary.pdf || For Middle to High School Students || Version for Elementary School students also available