We usually start the poetry unit with haiku because its form is relatively simple to understand and students are typically familiar with it from elementary school. This year, however, I was surprised at the number of kids who had never heard of haiku or even those who could not say what a syllable was.
After some consideration, I realized that this group has not had any direct instruction in poetry since third grade. We went out for COVID before they reached the unit in fourth grade, and poetry was part of the content that was dropped last year in order to streamline the curriculum for hybrid instruction.
So for the last two days I've found myself actually teaching haiku rather than delivering a cursory review of its rules. It has been a surprisingly satisfying intellectual experience to take a deeper dive into the form: 17 syllables of observation leaves no room for the extraneous nor any repetition; perfect verbs and adjectives etch the fine strokes of these profound and exquisite sketches.
Or not. The writers I spend my days with are still in sixth grade, and so I got a few poems like this:
The sky is ugly.
The kids are ugly, too.
The birds are stupid.
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