Y7: The Sonnet Form (Week 8)

Hello again Year 7,

Thank you to everybody who completed last week’s ‘Metrical Challenge’. There’s a merit on EduLink for every one of you.

I received lots of emails containing lots of great iambic lines. Where the lines didn’t quite fit into the pattern of iambic pentameter, it was for one of two reasons:

• there was a mistake in the syllable count

• there wasn’t an iambic rhythm

Let’s do a quick recap on these things now:

A syllable is a unit of pronunciation having one vowel sound, with or without surrounding consonants, forming the whole or a part of a word. Counting syllables in a word is like counting beats in a word.

Some words have just one syllable. E.g. shoe, walk, wink, tree.

Some words have two syllables. E.g. very, little, under, darkness, foreign.

And some words have more than two syllables. Your first task today will be to try to gain confidence at counting syllables and identifying stresses.

Remember, an iamb is a two syllable foot where the first syllable is unstressed and the second is stressed. Last week, we described it as a ‘ti-TUM’ rhythm. When writing iambic pentameter, try to make sure that there are as many iambs as possible by:

• starting lines with an unstressed syllable where possible

• ending lines with a stressed syllable where possible

Here’s your work for the week beginning 15^th June:

1) Try the syllable counting exercise on the powerpoint below. On the second slide, see if you can spot the stressed syllables:

If you are having trouble with syllable counts, there’s a handy online tool to help you here. You can search individual words for a syllable count. It also tells you which syllable is stressed and how to pronounce the word.

Use this if you want to check the syllable count in a whole line. You could paste in your lines of iambic pentameter to check them!

2) Have a quick flick through this powerpoint to remind yourself of some key information from last week:

3) Do this recap quiz on the sonnet form.

4) Read and make notes on the information on rhyme and line endings in this powerpoint:

5) Read this week’s sonnet (Shakespeare’s Sonnet 27) and answer the questions (if you are viewing on an Apple device and cannot see a full-screen or download button, click here for a WORD | PDF):

6) Metrical challenge 2: Rhyming couplets

Write some rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter.

Have a look at the powerpoint below for guidance and advice. You might need a rhyming dictionary too!

When you’ve finished, send your best couplets (or all of them!) to Mr Muralee in an email. Let me know if you are happy for me to share them in next week’s blog. Make sure you put the name of your English teacher in your email too.

Checklist
Make sure you include couplets with:

• a masculine rhyme
• a feminine rhyme
• end-stopped lines
• enjambment

Good luck!

That’s it for this week. In a few weeks, I’ll be challenging you to write a whole sonnet of your own!

Please get in touch if you need any help.

THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

P.S. Here’s my effort:

The buzz of bees and whirr of mini drone

That high above the garden’s trees has flown.