Teaching and Assessing Second Language Poetry Writing in Japan

This chapter reports on qualitative, autoethnographic research on the author's teaching practice of English language haiku – a three-line Japanese form of poetry with a specific number of syllables in each line – in the Japanese EFL university context. Drawing on three different assessment tools that he designed and used in first-year college English courses over the last decade, the current study explores the content of each assessment tool and identifies some issues and challenges in designing and developing rubrics for English language haiku. The chapter concludes with pedagogical and practical implications for the teaching and assessment of poetry writing in the second language writing classroom.