Haiku

Contact: 

Andy Wright (andy@eagleschools.org) 

Dates & Locations: 

Due - February 13, 2026, to Haiku GDCALN Google Team Drive

Friday, May 15, 2026 6:30 - 7:30 PM @ Eagle Schools - Reading Night of the Top 50 

School districts/students must be a part of the Greater Dane County Advanced Learners Network to participate in the Haiku contest. Students must currently be in 4th grade. A teacher's guide to writing haiku is linked here and is also available at the bottom of this page. Teacher encouragement while completing a haiku is very helpful. Entries must be submitted by February 10 and must follow the requirements listed below. A panel of judges will read all entries and determine winners. Winners are announced by early April. A booklet containing winning Haikus is published and distributed to student winners and participating districts. Winning authors and their families are invited to attend a celebration in late April to honor their work.

How to participate

Districts sign up to participate during the GDCALN signup process in the fall. All participating districts will receive an invitation in December to a Google Team Drive entitled “Haiku GCDALN”. This drive will contain instructions about submitting entries. 

Requirements:

•  All instructions were shared with district coordinators and are available here. This document includes all links needed for submissions.

• Teachers should conduct preliminary judging and select up to 20% of the students' work to submit. Teachers can submit up to 3 of a student's haiku.

• Submissions should be in Google Doc format, with a title and a number for each haiku.

• Haiku written in Spanish are welcome.

• Submissions are due on February 13, 2026.

• Teachers should not include student names on the haiku pages; instead, use a number and record the corresponding student name on a separate participant list.

• Originality statements are required for each submission.

• A sample submission folder is available for reference.

• Please have students include a title with each haiku.

Haiku Judging Criteria

Happy Haiku-ing!