Teachers - Read this first

Read the oveview first.

This is a lesson for Photoshop 7.0, but any version should work without much modification. This is a beginning Photoshop lesson so there are no prerequisites. The lesson will take one to three class periods. I teach high school students in a lab setting and each student works independently.

Have students open this web site along with Photoshop and be sure they know how to toggle between the two applications.

Demonstrate a step or two and then walk around the room to make sure they have completed the steps. Ask them to help each other to get steps to move more quickly. Students need to stay with the steps to avoid confusion and frustration. Make sure the students save their work often.

Note: Students often create 400 inches instead of pixels.

Allow students to create their own design or add their own innovations to the assignment.

After completing the design, present the students with the haiku lesson. I have included background information that can be used with students unfamiliar with this type of poetry. The students will write haiku based on their drawings, then combine image and text using a web editor or other software suitable forpresentation.

Haiku Lesson plan:

Show students the teacher’s example (http://teachers.altschools.org/landerson/WSWEB/Brushtool/haiku.htm ) or show student work samples found online or from other classes in your school.
As a class, discuss the following questions:
Does this haiku have the right number of syllables in each line? Does it follow the 5-7-5 pattern?
Does this haiku make you think of any season? Give your reasons.
Is an animal mentioned in this haiku? What things in nature are mentioned?
What does this haiku make you think about? Is it happy or sad? What do you think the author was thinking when she wrote this? (Remember, there are no right or wrong answers to this one, just ideas!)
Tell students they will get a chance to write their own haiku about their drawings.
3. To attach your haiku to your drawing, use Dreamweaver, Frontpage, HTML or any web friendly application. I did mine in Dreamweaver. I created a 3x1 table with the title in the first row, the image in the second and the haiku in the third.

Additional resources for teachers:
http://longwood.cs.ucf.edu/%7EMidLink/haikus.html
Fall Haiku poems submitted to Midlink Magazine by children

http://www.haiku.insouthsea.co.uk/
In the moonlight a worm silently drills through a chestnut . . . a web site with lesson plans and haiku for teachers and students.

http://home.clara.net/pka/haiku/hints.html
A Haiku Homepage – Hints on how to write haiku

I will merge the two with dreamweaver but frontpage or an HTML document or even Word should work just fine.

Grading is based on the quality and completion of work along with considering the students' level of computer savvy.

Please send comments/suggestions to me at LauraJaneAnders@aol.com