Dig deeper into the craft of poetry reading and writing with this focused six-week course introducing poetic meters, otherwise known as patterns of rhythm in poetry. Learn to hear and recognize various meters through practice in writing metrical lines. Acquire more language for talking and writing about the poems you read. Become a more sophisticated reader of poetry, as you explore further how a poem’s sound may enhance its meaning and your experience of it.
Total classes: 6
Duration per class: 55 minutes
Prerequisite: None
Suggested grade level: 9th to 12th grade
Suggested credit: ½ semester Poetry or Literature. For a full semester credit sign up for How to Read a Poem.
Instructor: Sally Thomas
Instructor Email: sallytslc@hotmail.com
Course description: This six-week course will cover basic poetic meters, with standard literary terminology. Students will learn to recognize different poetic meters and will practice writing in them, to emerge as more sophisticated readers of, and writers about, poetry. This introductory-level course may provide a springboard to any other literature course, or augment a class taken concurrently.
Course outline:
Week 1: Accentual Meters: Anglo-Saxon Poetry and Beyond
Week 2: Introduction to Metrical Feet: Iambic Pentameter
Week 3: More Metrical Feet: The Trochee
Week 4: Still More Metrical Feet: Anapests and Dactyls
Week 5: How Many Feet, If Not Five? Dimeter, Trimeter.
Week 6: How Many Feet, If Not Five? Tetrameter, Hexameter
Course materials: Handouts provided FREE by the instructor.
Homework: Homework will consist of five poems per week, to be read ideally one per weekday, carefully, with attention, multiple times, with notes to be submitted. There will also be a weekly reading quiz, and a poetry-writing exercise. Students should budget an hour, five days a week, on homework, inclusive of writing exercises and quizzes.
- Teacher: Sally Thomas