Poetry Writing Competition

Kasia Kuzma

Kasia Kuzma works in early education and is Junior High School teacher for one of the state schools in Gdansk, Poland. She is also involved in independent film productions and is interested in Public Relations. She used to be my student a few years ago ( Hania K.)

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The Haiku competition
Sample Haikus

Haiku is one of the most important forms of traditional Japanese poetry. Haiku poems consist of respectively 5, 7 and 5 syllables in three units. In Japanese, this convention is a must, but in English, which has variation in the length of syllables, this can sometimes be difficult. The idea of writing haikus for a school competition was meant to be an alternative to a traditional English language competition held yearly in my school. The authors of those haikus are intermediate students of English at the age of 16. All the haikus were written during extra curricular Drama and Poetry classes. Writing itself was preceded by explanations of what haikus are, the way haikus should be written and by collecting any vocabulary students may have needed.

Meow in the kitchen
My lovely cat is screaming
My cat is hungry.

by Natalia Lis

Sleepless is awful
So please do let me dream through
hard and tiring life.

by Agata Pisarewicz

Groan comes from castle
What is it? It is an old
Ghost or stupid me.

by Sylwia Rozenkranc

You take my hand at
night and show me the way how
real love should be made.

by Karolina Kaminska

Evil at night is
much stronger. Evil people
think they are not seen.

by Natalia Lis

Haiku for Getting Feedback

Hanna Kryszewska

Hanna Kryszewska teacher, teacher trainer, author and editor of HLT magazine. Lectures at the University of Gdansk, Poland

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The Haiku project
Sample Haikus

I teach among others methodology to the fifth year students at the University of Gdansk. My group will soon be graduating with an M.A. degree in Early Education and Teaching English. About a month ago I was teaching the writing slot including process writing, product writing and creative writing. In the creative writing bit I wanted to introduce them among others to haiku. I strongly believe in creativity through limitation, which haiku is a perfect example of. I downloaded from the internet some examples of haiku and the students who were not familiar with the genre, first had to discover the main principles behind haiku. As I was about to go off to my session I was approached by a representative of the Pedagogy Institute asking me to gather some feedback from the students regarding their course. Considering the short notice I decided to use haiku as a way of gathering feedback. At a later stage I also used mini sagas but this is a different story. Sorry… saga. Below you will find the results of their work and you can find out for yourselves what their methodology course is like.

Let's make it funny
Even if it's hard
Methodologically.



My head is heavy
Awe inspiring knowledge
Down my head has gone



Making sponge monsters
Counting triangles
That's what pedagogy is.



The best time to study
Is summer because nobody
Studies then.



The question appeared:
Are you on the right place?
Romana Miller asked.

Teacher Writes Poetry

Kasia Kuzma

Kasia Kuzma works in early education and is Junior High School teacher for one of the state schools in Gdansk, Poland. She is also involved in independent film productions and is interested in Public Relations. She is willing to share her own poems with us.

Fame

Fame
is just a flame-
lighting up the sky
proclaiming your name
appearing on the stage
learning how to fly
it's living forever
making people cry
it's being someone else
when you want to be
it's finding the escape
from reality
it's having a great dream
when you're standing there
and it's waking up
when they're
clapping their hands…

Chasing Amy

Chasing Amy
Can't catch up with her
Chasing Amy
And I can't find the way
to hunt down her
it has barely started
I can't empty my cup of coffee
can't catch up with her
I'm going nowhere
Can't smoke up a cigarette
Can't match a painting
Chasing Amy
I want to convert her
I think she's still waiting

Lullaby

Give me a big hug mummy
and switch off the light
I'll tell you a fairy- tale mummy
before we say goodnight

Sit down right here mummy
sit down and close your eyes
the moon is shining mummy
the night is warm and calm

All cats and dogs are sleeping
a star's sparkling in the sky
The wind is blowing
Listen!
it's singing a lullaby

So give me a big hug mummy
and leave me all alone
I will dream a sweet dream mummy
I will dream on my own

Please check the The Creative Methodology course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the The Methodology and Language for Primary Teachers course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the The Humanising Large Classes course at Pilgrims website.