Reflections on the Teche

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I have had some struggles with using Haiku Deck in my classroom due to the network blocks on our server. I’m sure this is an issue for others as we use new apps in our classrooms. I found a way this week to make it work. The server blocks the images, but not the app. I taught my students about fair use of photos from the Internet. We search images on Google, click on Search Tools, and click on Labeled for reuse. This limits greatly the number of images we can choose from. However, when using a web-based app, I feel it is important to use the images rightly.

The poetry writing exercise included a discussion of imagery and how scientific poems can use imagery to help your reader understand a concept. We looked through poetry books and found model poems that used imagery. We read together the poem Helianthus from Seeds, Bees, Butterflies, and More! by Carole Gerber.
“If saying ‘helianthus’ makes you cower…
use our common name–
Sunflower!”
Vannisa chose to write a haiku about sunflowers. She actually wrote three haikus, so I told her that a long poem using the haiku syllable count is called a Choka.

To see the full poem on Haiku Deck, click here.

Inspired by Carole Gerber’s big name poem, Matthew wrote about Charcharodon Carcharias or Great White Sharks. Matthew managed to work in a line he lifted from the book he is reading.

Matthew’s full poem is here: