A Poppy Blooms

Essential Question: How can poetry help us understand ourselves, others, and the world?

Do-Now: Journal and Discuss (5 minutes)

• Project the following prompt on your whiteboard for students to respond to in their journal or on a piece of paper. Alternatively, have students respond on a sticky note and place it on the board.  

Fill in the blank: Writing is _______________. (Be honest!)

How do you feel about writing? Is it a process you like/dislike? What is it you like/dislike about it?

• Share and discuss responses. Tell students that today they will read a short and thoughtful poem about writing that expresses some of the same ideas they have just shared. 

View a Slideshow (5 minutes)

Project the “What Is Haiku?” slideshow on your whiteboard to build knowledge about the haiku form and haiku’s history.

• Read the What to Know box on page 24 or at the top of the digital story page.

• Have students follow along as they listen to the audio read-aloud, located in the Resources tab in Teacher View and at the top of the story page in Student View.
  

• Have a volunteer read the poem aloud, and then have students read it silently to themselves. Then discuss the following questions.

Poetry Analysis (25 minutes)

• In the haiku, what process is the speaker describing? The speaker is describing the writing process. 

• Based on the first two lines, what is the writing process like for the speaker? Writing is a difficult process. There is a lot of trying, scrapping, redoing—struggling and dissatisfaction. It is a process of creation and destruction.  

• Based on this poem, what is a quality a writer must have? A writer must have perseverance, or stick-to-itiveness.

• Which part of the poem feels like a cliffhanger? How does the poet create this feeling? The end of line 2 feels like a cliffhanger. The sentence breaks at the end of line 2 on the words “and then.” These particular words and the natural pause at the end of a line create a feeling of suspense. What comes before “and then”  is about struggling. What comes after is a thing of beauty. It’s a dramatic and sudden change. 

• What is a poppy? What does the poppy represent? A poppy is a bright, beautiful flower. It represents writing that is beautiful and the joy that comes with creative expression. (You may want to share with students that the Japanese word  keshi has two meanings: “poppy” and “to erase.”  This is a great example of wordplay, a literary technique in which words are used in clever and playful ways.)

• State the poem’s central idea or theme in one sentence. Answers will vary but should be similar to “The act of writing is difficult but can result in great beauty” or “It is through revision— trying, starting over, and trying again—that something extraordinary happens.” 

• How can the idea expressed in this poem about writing apply to life in general? Answers will vary. Students might offer that this poem reminds us that hard work pays off—whether it’s learning how to ride a skateboard, practicing a new math skill, or working through a conflict with a friend, persevering through imperfections and failure is the path to excellence and success.

• Have students complete the Poetry Planner. This brainstorming and guided writing activity will help them write their own haiku.