A five-line Japanese verse formed with a syllable count of 5-7-5-7-7. Any subject matter can be used.
Objective
To help the students clarify their thinking about a character.
Procedures
- Have the students create a poem about one of the main characters in the
story. It might be good to have each child do Marty--how do they see the character
at this point in the story. Reading other student's understanding of the same
character helps to deepen your own understanding.
- If you would like to see an example
of a tanka, there are some tankas done by students in Mrs. Munnecke's
class last year!
- Then it would be fun to pick one other character. This could be Ma, Dad,
Becky, Dara Lynn, shilohhh, etc.
- Have the students share their poems in a small group and then whole group
if they would like.
- If you have access to a computer, this would be a good project for each
child to do on the computer and then make a border around the poem filled
with symbols that they feel identifies that character.
Tips to the Teacher
These could be displayed on the bulletin board so that students could see what others have done with the same poem. The borders that the students create often contain great insight into the students understanding of the character. Encourage the students to put symbols in the border that stand for that character.
When writing a Tanka, the verbs should be in the present tense. Avoid ending the lines with prepositions or conjunctions. Tankas are usually unrhymed, but they may be rhymed if the poet wishes or if the rhyme falls naturally into the content of the poem. Any rhyme scheme may be used, the most common being the rhyming of the last two lines.
