A trauma-informed, standards-aligned haiku curriculum that has reached over 200 Camden, NJ students, with a 45% increase in students using writing for emotional coping.
Context
The Nick Virgilio Haiku Association, a Camden nonprofit and home of the Virgilio Writers House, had taught haiku workshops for decades, but each session depended on whoever was teaching it. NVHA wanted a free, standardized program it could bring into Camden public schools, where many students in grades 6–8 arrive with little or no poetry experience.
Approach
I designed “Haiku & You,” a six-week, twelve-session course (two 45-minute sessions a week) built on a single progression: students start by crafting one vivid image and build toward a titled collection of their own poems. Every session opens with a 10-minute sensory icebreaker to encourage reflection. Each week has essential questions, measurable objectives, and a concrete writing target, and the course is mapped to New Jersey Student Learning Standards for grades 5–6. The work was shaped with an English-education professor and reviewed by a licensed counselor to keep it healing-centered and trauma-informed. This program was recently rebranded as The Tiny Truths Project.
What I built
- A 6-week curriculum: haiku → senryu → haiku series → rhyme and rhythm → performance → final collection
- Session-by-session lesson plans with objectives, keywords, icebreakers, and lesson outlines
- A 35-slide classroom deck for teaching artists to deliver the course consistently
- Collaborated on pre- and post-program surveys to measure confidence, reflection, and emotional coping
- Designed slides, prospectus and trifold explaining the curriculum process for clients and instructors
Outcome
In spring 2025, the program served 51 students at Cooper’s Poynt Family School and Davis Elementary. Anonymous surveys showed up to a 45% increase in students reporting high confidence, self-reflection, and emotional coping, and 84% said they felt joy in writing after the program. More than 200 students have taken part since 2023.
