I ran my own version of this lesson.
I started with explaining syllables. I explained how you can clap to sound out how many syllables the word has. Making them clap out the syllables was a good way to keep everyone focused, and some of the classes seemed to like it quite a bit even though it's a high school class.
Students quickly picked up on the fact that their pronunciation was adding more syllables to the word than there should be. For example, in one class, I had a student object to my co-teacher "but, teacher, eng-li-shi is 3!". The co-teacher then quickly rattled off in Korean some explanation I didn't understand, but I made out the phrase "eng-li-shi = Konglish" (win!).
I drilled them with about 12 examples (in the power-point), starting with simple words with few syllables (words whose spelling correlate well with their syllables) and building up to more complex words with more syllables. Students mostly got the idea.
I then showed them a puzzle (in the power point) where they had to finish three sentences using a word bank (again, in the power point). As I hint, I showed them the number of syllables each of the missing words had, so they had to choose a word from the word bank that also had that many syllables.
When it was complete, we read the sentences aloud. I explained that these sentences were an example of a Haiku (they'd never heard of it before). I passed out the worksheet, and then explained the rules for Haiku (while they took notes on their worksheet by filling in the blanks).
I then gave each group of students (working in teams of 6) another Haiku puzzle where they had to unscramble the missing words, just as before. I made these a bit harder than the one we did as a class. This was designed to help reinforce for the students the structure of a Haiku and give them more practice counting syllables.
Once that was finished, I turned the students loose on writing their own Haiku. The worksheet breaks the writing process down for them to make it easier. They first have to choose a topic, and then they have to write 10-15 words that are related to that topic, along with the number of syllables those words have (I showed them how they can look up the syllables in the dictionary if they are not sure). Finally, they can use those to try to form sentences.
A few students in my high-level classes finished in the first class, but most didn't come close, or barely started. In the second class, I reviewed and drilled syllables a bit more. I then gave students time to finish their Haikus. I instructed them to show me their Haiku when they finished, and (once I'd corrected it) I'd give them a piece of colored paper to write their Haiku on with marker (and inevitably illustrate as well). I encouraged the students who finished early to help other students with their work (one of the behaviors that I've been encouraging in my class).
Most Haikus required some editing. Students were often off by one or two syllables on at least one sentence. Many students seemed to assume "very" had only one syllable. I found myself suggesting they insert the word "very" or "so" to adjust the syllable count.
The students posted their finished Haikus onto the whiteboard with magnets. I then gave each of the students a small sticker (small plastic stickers with sparkling hearts and stars and such). Each student could then walk up and read the Haikus and put a sticker on their favorite one. I rewarded the top voted Haiku with a couple pieces of candy.
Overall, I got about 2/3rds of the students to finish their Haikus. Almost all students in my mid and high level classes completed theirs, but in some of my lower level mixed classes I only got 10 out of 30 students.
The most common topics for Haikus were boyfriends, food, and school/vacation.
One of my favorites:
Fast food is so good,
I think food during the class,
Fast food is a thief
If you don't have a Mac or Keynote, the Quicktime version of the presentation (with manual advance) can be found at:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2ug6pme99mgl5wy/Haiku%20No%20Puzzle.movI've attached some photos of a collage I made from the Haikus that I put on the room's bulletin board.
