Poetry and Ramen Noodles

Never in a million years thought this was a particularly stellar idea, but it went really well. We made Ramen noodles and ate them while reading an ENTIRE book of Japanese poetry. We used the book 100 Poems from the Japanese edited by Rexroth. We made two batches of noodles just in the microwave. I had chopsticks for the students and while the food brought them in, the poetry kept them there. This is a great collection because the poems are short, they have the Japanese pronunciation below, and they are almost all about love and longing which my teens relate to really, really well. We passed the book around, they read the poems, and after many the whole group would heave a collective *sigh*.