Let some zen into your class

As a teacher, I always search for new ways to make a lesson more exciting for my students. Quite recently, I started using cinquain, and the first experiences proved to be positive.

Cinquain /ˈsɪŋkeɪn/ is a five-line poetic form inspired by Japanese tanka. It has no rhyme but the number of syllables or words is usually fixed. Adelaide Crapsey, the American poet, introduced the form in 1915.

My pupils practice the didactic cinquain form to express the essence of a text in the most simplistic way. We count the number of words:

First line – a one-word title (a noun), the subject of the text;

Second line – a pair of adjectives describing the title;
Third line – three verbs or gerunds with more information on the action;
Forth line – a four-word phrase summarizing the story;
Fifth line – a single word expressing feelings to the subject.

Below are three real-life examples of cinquains:

My eighth-year student described a theatrical performance like this:

Musical

Beautiful, strange
Singing, dancing, playing
A deaf and numb patient falls in love
Joy

A sixth-year pupil commented on an article on math charts in the following five lines:

Graphs

Bright, useful
Count, draw, show
Numbers, lines, bars, and pies
Information

Finally, a junior secondary school student chose the cinquain form to retell a part of the Jungle Book:

Monkeys

Funny, happy
Sitting, running, playing
Mowgli never saw this
Lost City

You might try this format to brighten up your classes.