Students will learn how to write a Haiku poem. They will then discover how to make an ink painting to illustrate their poem.
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Objectives:
- Learn about haiku poetry.
- Have the experience of writing a haiku.
- Make an ink painting to enhance the haiku.
What You Need:
- Haiku poems
- Example of a Japanese brush painting (optional).
- Straws
- White construction or other heavy paper
- Higgins Black ink with dropper
- Brush and water jar (optional)
- Pink tissue paper (optional)
What You Do:
- Tell students about HAIKU poetry and read some old and new examples.Structure of Japanese 17th century Haiku poems:
- Have 3 lines (in classical structure the first line has 5 syllables, the second has 7 syllables, the last has 5 again, but that doesn’t necessarily work in English, because the English language doesn’t have as many words to describe the same things as the Japanese language does.)
- Refer to nature
- Use ordinary things to talk about significant issues like finding happiness in the beauty of nature, dying, falling in love, being left alone, not having friends, etc.
- Can be happy, sad, humorous, frightening, etc.
Examples:
The mighty Eagle
Catches prey with talons bare
Listen to the squishNight and silver moon
Neighbor playing on his flute
Very out of tuneSmall, alone, a child
Sobs and tears in a corner
Darkness gives a hugWinter rainy day
Playing in the big puddles
Water everywhere - Have student write a haiku poem. Check it for nature references and correct form.
- Have student neatly write the poem on the top left corner of the white paper.
- Drop a few (just need a tiny bit) drops of black ink on the paper (not on the poem part).
- With a straw, blow the ink around. If you get close you can move it all over the page to get branch-like shapes and little spidery shapes. If you blow hard, you get splat shapes.
- For older students, you can add “raindrops” by dipping a brush in ink, then putting it in water to dilute the ink, then holding the brush over the paper and tapping the brush lightly to make drops.
- For younger students, you can add “flowers” to the branches by gluing bits of crumpled pink tissue paper to the branches of the dried painting.
- Mount on large black paper to make a border around the painting.
Students of all ages LOVE this project, and the combined paintings make a great bulletin board display!