STUDENT ACTIVITIES

• Activities based on 'The Fake Egg' by Kuniko Mukoda
  
• Haiku Activities: The Shiki Site
  
• Tanka Activities: A Modern Travel Journal
  
• Manga Activities
  

HAIKU ACTIVITIES: THE SHIKI SITE
Background Information
The student activities are based on material accessed through the 'Shiki Site' located at:

http://www.cc.matsuyama-u.ac.jp/~shiki/

This is one of the many Internet sites dealing with haiku. It includes information about the poet Shiki, examples of his work and examples of entries in the 'Shiki Internet Haiku Contest'. Your students might be interested in entering the current contest.

This site is named after Shiki Masaoka, who was a haiku poet born in Matsuyama, Japan in 1867. In 1883, he went to Tokyo to study politics and philosophy at the Imperial University. He began writing fiction but soon started to study and compose haiku.

In his time he was a reformer. He thought the haiku form had become too formulaic and recommended basing its composition on the 'sketch from life' technique. Shiki died in 1902.

In Hanabi, passing reference is made to the fact that haiku traditionally include a reference to a season. The Shiki haiku on the Internet are organised according to the seasons.

The student worksheet complements the section of Hanabi dealing with the modern haiku of Madoka Mayuzumi (pp. 11-17) but they do not depend on it. Students require only a basic knowledge of the haiku form. The student worksheet can be printed.

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