If its spring it's Haikus
In March I show my fifth grade class poet Kwami Alexandar's video [available on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHY0DMLp2SE ] Introducing Haikus. It never fails to entertain and motivate. We write a new haiku daily for a week in our writer's journal, inspired by mentor texts. At the end of the week, students pick their favorites, revise and edit them, then make a visual of their haiku on a collective Google Slide show, which will be viewed around the school during our celebration of April Poetry Month.
A couple of good things come out of this mini unit. Students write a finished piece in one-to-two weeks. They get practice using Google Slides and learn design principles. The onus of writing a poem during April is gone; we will still do poetry next month, but with less pressure.
Through haiku I am always thrilled when they realize that structure begets creativity and that every word counts. I love that they get practice deleting unnecessary words, "Cutting to the Bone" as Nanci Atwell would say.
Below is a sampling of their work.
