Wordplaygrounds: Week Two, Day Two!

Today in workshop students shared their Ode poems from the previous session-- then, we started in on an entirely new kind of poem, centering on "Things we've lost". The students were instructed to take a few minutes to make a list of 20 things they had lost, maybe in the past hour, week, year, or even in their lifespan. When everyone shared their lists, we heard everything from the very specific and small (my cellphone, a pencil, a videogame) to the very broad and/or serious (my grandmother, my train of thought, my ignorance of being ignorant). Often, we found that the most powerful lists were not just made up on one catergory or the other, but of a mix of minute specifics and broad concepts. In the second half of class, we tried to pinpoint what exactly makes a Haiku (hint: it's not a 5-7-5 syllable pattern). After we had come up with a few good criteria (it has three lines, involves the 5 senses, usually has to do with nature and the seasons, usually involves two images, and captures an instant in time) the class tried their hands at writing a few haiku of their own, starting with the first line "A summer storm".