View Finder Haiku
Today, in celebration of National Poetry Month, I challenged my AP (Advanced Placement) Literature and Composition students to the 'ku challenge, described in detail on my poetry blog here.
For this activity, I briefly introduced the haiku genre using the material linked above, asking students to share what they already know about this poetic form, activating background knowledge and also effectively helping other students catch up on their poetry knowledge.
Then, I had students choose a viewfinder from the front table. A viewfinder is useful in art because it helps to focus a student's perspective. I have collected a ton of paint samples with little squares cut out, and I finally found a use for these items. They worked perfectly as viewfinders!
We were originally going to walk outside, but it started raining. So, like all teachers will have to do, I had to think quickly of a plan b, which evolved into plan c and d and, well, you get the point.
Background Information
In celebration of National Poetry Month, I have been working hard to incorporate poetry into my AP curriculum, no easy feat considering that we missed nearly two weeks of school due to snow, two weeks of time that were mostly "forgiven" due to a complicated mess of hours in school versus days in school. The perpetual student in me rejoices--I was just as excited as the kids to not lose spring break. Now that I am on the other side of that spring break, I realize how little time we have left before AP exams, how little time I have left with this wonderful group of seniors I met as juniors...
So I have been rattling my brain to figure out how to infuse poetry into the curriculum now, rather than waiting until I get to "that unit." I already teach with poetry in many ways (see my found poem assignment/assessment for an example), but the pre-assessment I had students complete for my AP Literature and Composition class (locally known as AP IV) revealed that students struggled the most with reading poetry and answering multiple choice comprehension questions. Furthermore, students self-reported that they felt the most uncomfortable with poetry and dreaded reading or writing it. Therefore, I have been working this semester to weave poetry in to every unit. Still, I get a lot of groans. I promised my class that I wasn't going to stop teaching poetry until they had each developed at least an appreciation for it and had overcome their fears of poetry.
In my fifteen years of experience as a high school English teacher, I have learned that students can be more easily brought into poetry when it is poetry they have created. I have learned to make these creative exercises as non-threatening as possible. My strategy is to expose students to the wondrous joy of playing with words and then to teach them to interpret poetry. It is important to stress to students that just as one does not write an analytical essay on every song they hear or every movie they watch, poetry is not meant to just be analyzed. It is meant to be enjoyed, savored, even.
Like most teachers, I hoard strange things. I raided a Lowes once and denuded their shelves of paint sample swatches. These swatches had the strangest little squares cut out of them, so I never found a good use for them. Last night, I grabbed those and some markers, crayons, colored pencils, post-its, and construction paper. I wasn't sure exactly how these materials would be used--I planned on the students using these to creatively publish their poems.
I did some Googling and came across the idea of having students use a picture frame to frame whatever they were writing a poem about. Today on the way to drop some papers off in the front office, I bumped into the art teacher ad shared my excitement about my poetic art project that students would be doing later in the day. She told me that in art, this frame would be called a view finder, and she suggested that we use the paint sample things for that purpose since they already had a window cut out. And so a grand idea was born--View Finder Haiku!
View Finder Haiku in Action
Yesterday, I took the students outside to write Dirty Hands Poetry (click the link to read more about this lesson), and one of my students suggested that we look at the chickens in the chicken coop. They weren't there; however, so she contacted the AG teacher to ask if they could visit us today. Of course, I forgot these visitors were coming!
But these stressed out, over-extended seniors LOVED coming into the room to find art supplies on the tables and no need for their ever-present laptops. They were even more relaxed and excited when the chickens and a bunny came to visit. They quickly got into petting the animals and just going with the flow, using their viewfinders to write haikus about their experiences. Although it was drizzling, some students elected to walk outside and write. I gave them strict instructions for when they should return, and being trustworthy students, all was well.
Even my student who professes to hate poetry was seen smiling. Thirty minutes later, everyone was done writing their haikus and had artfully displayed them. I will share student models below. There was a palpable sense of relaxation in the air. Students seemed almost giddy.
Student Models
Follow Up
Students also posted their poems on our online discussion board and were instructed to read and respond to one another's poems. Tomorrow, I plan to have students look at these models and discuss any common themes that they notice. We will then read some haiku poetry and answer AP style multiple choice questions. I will share question stems with students and have them create their own questions on their own haiku as well as other haikus. They will do this work in their writing circles, and it will help them to not only appreciate poetry but to understand the types of questions they will be asked as well as how to interpret poetry. My goal remains to keep them engaged in poetry and to reignite their love for it (after all, I feel that all young children's books are poems, illustrated, so all children have at one point delighted in having poetry read aloud to them). In order to meet my goals as an educator, I always ask my students to give me feedback after any project or unique assignment. Read on to see the students' reflections on this poetry activity.
Student Feedback/Reflections
"I personally really enjoyed this activity because it was a change of pace from what we normally do. I like doing fun, hands on activities like this one instead of doing stuff on the computer. I also liked that we got to be creative and show our artsy sides when completing this assignment. I personally get more out of fun, hands on activities instead of just computer work. This assignment made us think and work, while enjoying ourselves at the same time."
"I enjoyed this assignment a lot. It made writing poetry more entertaining and interactive. I also really loved the haiku style poem because they are very fun to create and by far my favorite form of poetry. I liked the little view finder thing because it made it more personal and allowed us to write about what we saw. We should definitely do more assignments like this! :)"
"I thought the activity today was absolutely wonderful. Bringing in live animals and using paint swatches to truly see the smaller meaning in life was such a fun learning experience. This is something I will tell my family and friends about later on in life about my high school AP English experience. I don't really like chickens but hearing everyone else's output about the smaller things they observed showed me that we can create broad imagery to use when explaining to other's what we see."
"This haiku assignment is the 2nd poetry we've had this week. Today is Tuesday. Poetry is very vast and I feel very meek in the face of it. I've found these two activities to relax my nerves, which I am appreciative for. Using the viewfinder made me pick how I wanted to be creative. I was aided by the baby bunny."
"I feel like this really helped me connect with nature and understand haikus a little better."
"I overall really liked this project. It went out of just coming up with a random idea. We observed animals and I liked it a lot. It was out of the ordinary and that is why most of us liked it. However, I personally did not enjoy the viewfinder part; it was a nuisance."
"I enjoyed the haiku writing assignment. As a tactile person, I appreciated the hands on activity. I particularly enjoyed learning about the history of the haiku. Context helped me approach the "challenge" of writing a good poem and will likely help me to interpret haikus on the AP exam. I liked how the view finders made us look through a narrow viewpoint. Maybe next time you could further explain the color choice as a tone or setting or something clever and insightful!"
"I really enjoyed how we were able to have a hands-on inspiration. I enjoyed being able to show off my babies. I believe more hands-on opportunities will get the students more interested in what we are doing. I liked holding the chickens and bunny. I was interested in hearing what other students wrote about the animals."
"I really enjoyed the haiku activity today. We were able to learn some more about poetry as well apply it in a cool way. I really like when we get to go outside or use crafty materials to get work done. Even the poem from yesterday was fun. It's a nice change from the usual classwork we have to do. Thanks Ms. Faulkner. You can share my haiku if you want. "
"I liked how we were given the freedom to choose our own topic and how this was a hands-on activity outside of the classroom. I disliked how I had to make the final draft artistic. I think you should then go around the room and have each person share their haiku. To extend the activity, you should then collect the poems and pass them back out at random and have us provide interpretations of the poems we received. Feel free to use my poem for whatever you'd like." |
"This would be better if the instructions were more clear and precise, At first, I wasn't sure what to do. Besides that I think the assignment was interesting. I like haikus much better than regular poems so I enjoyed the assignment."
"I think that this was a cool and fun idea and activity. I think it could have been a little more precise on why and what we are doing, but when knowing exactly what to do and the objectives of it, I thought it was fun. I think these activities allow us to explore and not be restricted on what to write about!" (Teacher aside--when students talk during instructions, it is hard to have a clear picture of how to do an assignment).
Teacher Reflections
In the future, I will take the student suggestion of having them use the color on their paint swatch to represent the tone of the poem. I am excited to see how this extension works. Who knows, I may even have students write another viewfinder poem as a tone mini-lesson. I also plan to have students interpret one another's poems as suggested in these student reflections. Stay tuned! And post how you used this assignment either in your class or as a creative writer.
