(Secaucus, NJ––June 3, 2022) Dr. Laje Gashi—French teacher and World Language Educational Coach at HTHS—won First Prize for her poetry at the 2022 International Haiku Contest. She is joined by two students—Chantal Gomes and Joanna Lazo—who received Honorable Mentions for their poetry, announced Ms. Kathy Young, Principal of High Tech High School.
The annual haiku contest, which is sponsored by the United Nations International school, the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations, and the Northeast Council of Teachers of Japanese, invites poets to submit haiku to language-specific divisions including English, French, Japanese and Spanish. With twenty-four schools from across the US, Canada, and Japan contributing over one thousand entries across all divisions, Dr. Gashi and her students’ accomplishments truly stand out from the crowd.
Dr. Gashi says, "Poetry is another approach to teach a foreign language. By either reading or writing a small poem such as a haiku, I encourage my students to embrace such an effective medium. Congratulations to the winners and to all my students who stood up to the challenge!"
