by Paul Rance

Created on: June 09, 2010

The haiku has become a very popular poetry form in recent times, and it's a form which has a reputation for being very serious. But, it doesn't have to be. Writing a haiku can certainly be enjoyable for primary school children.

With only 17 syllables to play with, writing a haiku, even for adults, can sometimes be an experience where one feels like tearing one's hair out. So, for primary school children, it's important to make things easier - and fun.

It's best to let primary school children write one line of a haiku to begin with, as this will make things less hard for a small child to grasp, than their trying to write all three lines at once. Once a child has understood how the first line is constructed, then it's time to start writing the haiku.

Young children could begin writing down a few ideas they have in their minds, which could include, for instance, some of their favourite things. It's important not to impose your ideas on children of a very young age too much, and to let them be quite free in how they approach writing a haiku, but by all means show them examples, and then they can become inspired by these.

Motivation to write shouldn't be too difficult if the children are engaged in the first place. If they have a pet that they are fond of, then young children could be encouraged to write a haiku tribute about the best part of their pet. Or they could be encouraged to write about a favourite sports star, movie star, TV star, or pop star.

Once the first line of a haiku is written, point out as to what could be improved, and then encourage the child, step-by-step, to compose the second and third lines. It would be a better idea to compose the third line after the first line, because they have the same amount of syllables, and working from the seven syllables of the second line, and then to the third line of five syllables, may confuse a primary school child.

If a child has never written poetry before, and enjoys writing a haiku, then they will begin to become more interested in poetry as a whole. In fact, in this instance, writing a haiku will encourage a primary school child to not only think about writing poetry, but will be a doorway into the whole world of creative writing for them.

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