Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to this lesson on poetry with me, Krzebietka.

This is the final lesson in our unit on poetry.

And today, we're going to be focusing on something called metre.

Now, to many of you, this might be a brand new term, and something that you've never heard of before.

So that's really exciting, because that means that you're going to learn something new.

Before we get started, please can you make sure, that you've got rid of any distractions.

So if you've got a mobile phone can you make sure that it's turned off, put on silent or in another room.

Please make sure that you've got a pen, and something to write with.

And please make sure that you're somewhere quiet, so that you can focus fully on the lesson and the learning.

Okay, let's get started on this lesson on metre.

So before we move into the main parts of the lesson, I'm just going to run through exactly what we're going to be covering in this lesson.

So we're going to start with a recap task about rhythm.

Then we're going to introduce ourselves to metre, and find out exactly what metre actually is.

Next, we're going to think about how we identify metre in poetry.

And then we're going to review your knowledge, with the worksheet in the course.

So to get you started, we're going to recap our knowledge of rhythm.

So there are four options on the screen.

I want you to read through them very, very carefully.

And to decide which of these statements is not true about rhythm.

So read them carefully.

Think about our learning from previous lessons, and decide which of these statements is not true about rhythm.

Pause now, read through and have a go.

Amazing job, if you said, the option four.

The imagery that a poet uses helps to create rhythm is something that is not true about rhythm.

We know that actually, that imagery in a poem is not to do with rhythm, and it's not something that a poet users to create rhythm.

The other three options are all true about rhythm.

Natural stresses in our language are used to create rhythm.

The rhythm in a poem affects the pace at which you read it.

And the syllables in our words are an important part of rhythm in poetry.

So amazing job if you chose option four.

Okay, let's read this information then from stresses and syllables, because this is all part of rhythm, but also the new term that we're going to be learning which is metre.

So in our natural way of speaking, we tend to place more stress on particular parts of words.

And this stress makes some syllables in the word sound long, and some sound short.

So when I say the word guitar, I don't pronounce 'gui', with a long stress, I pronounce it with a short stress.

I pronounce the 'tar' part with that longer stress.

So that syllable is the stressed syllable in that word, guitar.

If you notice the 'tar' part seems to sound longer.

So to explain that a bit more clearly, the way we say the word guitar, means that it sounds like the first syllable 'gui' is short, and the second syllable 'tar' is long.

We call this stressed and unstressed syllables, 'tar' is stressed, and 'gui' is unstressed, just as I've explained.

So try saying the word aloud several times, and it'll become clear to you why we say that 'gui' is unstressed, and 'tar' is stressed, gui-tar, guitar.

Try saying the word aloud several times.

Okay, let's do a quick quiz to see what we've learned about metre, and the important parts of metre so far.

So there are three questions on the screen, and you have options for your answers.

I want you to pause to read the questions and the answers very carefully, and to decide which you think the correct answers are.

Pause now, and off you go.

Amazing job, if you said that the answer to the first question.

What do we do when we speak naturally? Was C.

We place stress on particular parts of words.

Well done, if you said that the answer to question two.

What do we call a long syllable which we emphasise? If you said that we call that a stressed syllable, then fantastic.

And then if you said for the next question.

What do we call a short syllable, which we don't emphasise? If you said that we call that an unstressed syllable, then brilliant work.

Don't worry if you didn't get those right just yet, because we've only just been through that, and that might be completely new knowledge to you.

What you might want to do, is to write down the questions along with their correct answers, so that you've got that written down for you to refer to later.

So let's find out a bit more about stresses and syllables, because they are really important to this thing called metre that we are studying in this lesson.

So in the word banana, the middle syllable is stressed.

If you heard how I said it then, I have said ba-na-na, but the first syllable 'ba' and the last syllable 'na', are unstressed, okay.

If you want to, again, try saying the word aloud several times banana, because that's what really helps you to understand where the stresses are, in the words that we say, and which syllables are stressed, and which are unstressed.

You can only really work it out by saying it aloud.

Here are some more examples of words, that have different stresses throughout them.

So elephant, we stress the 'phant', we stress the third syllable.

Christmas, we stress the first syllable 'Christ', Christmas.

We don't stress the second part.

Computer.

Again, just like banana, we stress the middle syllable, okay, the second syllable.

And amazing, again, we stress the middle syllable.

A-maz-ing, okay, we stress that middle syllable, that is our stressed syllable, and the other two syllables are unstressed.

If you want to, have a go at reading through those four words, and listening very careful to how you say them to help you work out more about stresses and syllables.

So some words have even stresses, for example, hairbrush and football.

When we say those words, it might sound like actually we stress both words equally.

Okay and both syllables within that word equally, so some words do have even stresses.

And also, sometimes the stresses of words might change.

So for example, and if we're emotional or if we are, and have a different accent or dialect, and the way that we say words might change, and therefore, what we call the stress on the syllables might change.

So for example, here are two different ways of saying "shut up." You might say, "Shut up." Okay, so shut, is emphasised there, shut up.

Or when I say, "Shut up," okay, and then the second part is stressed.

So as you can see, it's not a strict rule where the stress falls.

In lots of words, we can't tell naturally with how we say the word the stress falls, but sometimes, the stress on certain parts of words might change, okay, so it's not always a strict rule.

So let's see what you've learned about stress and syllables.

I want you to read the words on the screen aloud, and then write them down splitting them into stressed and unstressed syllables.

Number one has been done for you so you can see exactly, what I mean and what I want you to do.

So the example you've been given is stanza, and I have put in bold, the stressed syllable 'stan', and then in normal writing I have put 'za', you don't have to do it like that.

You could just underline the stressed syllable, and leave the unstressed syllable.

In other words, without anything underlined, so split them into syllables, and then identify which is the stressed syllable, and which is the unstressed syllable, in whichever way you want to do.

I've made it bold.

You can do it however you want.

You could even label them if you want to.

Okay, pause now and off you go.

Brilliant work, if you wrote down poetry, and you said that po-e-try.

If you said that the 'po' and the 'try' are stressed syllables, then you've done amazingly.

That's quite a difficult one actually, because it's got three syllables in poetry, okay.

That the 'po' and the 'try' are both the stressed parts of that word.

Daffodils, you could tell them couldn't you, with the way that I've said it.

Well done if you said that the 'daff' and the 'dils' part, are stressed, and the 'o' part is unstressed.

Macavity.

If you think back to our earlier poetry lesson, where we have the poem all about Macavity, The Mystery Cat.

In the word macavity, that 'cav' the middle syllable, is the one that is stressed, and 'ma', and 'e', and 't', are all unstressed.

Now rhythm, is one of those words where we have even stresses.

So listen to how it's said, "Rhythm." We stress both parts of that word quite evenly.

And therefore, we say that it's got even stresses, and both parts are stressed.

Now, don't worry if you said that some parts of the words were stressed differently, or if you wrote them down differently, because like I said, it's not a strict rule.

And you might have a different accent to me and a different dialect to me, which means that actually, you stress different parts of different words in a different way, and that's absolutely fine.

But this is generally where the stress falls in the words that I chose, and that are on the screen, so well done if you got those, right.

Okay, so what I'd like you to do now, is to read the new vocabulary that's on the screen, and write down the definition in your book, or on your document or whatever you are working for this lesson.

So I've talked a lot about stress, and I've talked a lot about syllables.

And I've said that they are both part of this thing called metre.

So metre, which is the focus of this lesson, is the way that rhythm is organised and measured in a poem.

And this is the really important part, because metre, is the pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables in a poem.

So when we're talking about metre, we're looking very carefully at the way a poet has used their syllables, we're looking at where they've used, unstressed and stressed syllables, and why that might be.

Okay.

So that's what metre is, it's all about stressed and unstressed syllables, and how they create rhythm in a poem.

So here are some examples, of how we might use the word metre correctly when talking about poetry.

When we look at poetry, we study the metre which tells us how the poet organised the rhythm.

The poet has used a regular metre in the poem to make the rhythm sound steady.

The poet has broken the rules of this metre to demonstrate her anger.

These sentences all use the word metre correctly to talk about something that has happened in a poem or to talk about how metre is used in poetry.

So if you want to pause again, and have another read through those, just so that you can see how this word is used and how it might be used to talk about poetry, and that's absolutely fine.

Please go ahead and do that.

Okay, so let's test your knowledge of the term metre and how it's used.

So which of these sentences does not use the word metre correctly? There are four on the screen.

I want you to pause, read through them very carefully, and then choose the one that you think does not use the word metre correctly.

Okay, off you go.

Well done.

If you said that metre is another word for the length of stanzas in a poem is not the correct use of metre.

The other options, one.

Metre to tell us how the poet has organised the rhythm in a poem is correct.

Number two, a regular metre in a poem can make the rhythm sound steady.

That's also correct.

And number three, a poet may break the rules of metre to demonstrate their anger, that's also true and uses the word metre correctly.

But number four does not.

Metre is not another word for the length of stanzas in a poem.

Okay.

Well done if you got that right.

Again, don't worry if you didn't, because this is a very new term to you, never heard of it before.

So there is nothing wrong at this point with not getting that quite right.

What you might want to do again, if you haven't done this already, is to write down those sentences, so that you can see how metre is used correctly to talk about poetry.

Okay, so we're going to read this information about our famous poetic metre, okay.

Now that might sound a bit strange to you, but actually, there is such thing as a famous type of metre, a famous way of organising the stresses and syllables in a poem, okay.

So one of the most famous poetic metres is called, iambic pentameter.

This metre includes five pairs of stressed and unstressed syllables, which make the following sound.

di dum, di dum, di dum, di dum, di dum.

So iambic pentameter, will always follows this pattern, unstressed stressed, unstressed stressed, unstressed stressed.

And there are always five of these pairs of stressed and unstressed syllables.

So that's how you can identify iambic pentameter.

Are there five pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables, and is the first syllable unstressed, and the second syllable stressed, okay? That's really important for you to remember.

So let's look at an example.

You can see in the line, and that's on the screen, that the bits in bold are the stressed syllables.

And the bits that aren't in bold are the unstressed syllables.

So this is a line of iambic pentameter.

And there are five of these pairs of stressed and unstressed syllables, okay? He bangs the drum and makes a dreadful noise, okay, so we know that's in iambic pentameter, because there are five of those pairs, of unstressed and stressed syllables.

If you want to have a go at reading it out loud, and maybe tap when you have a stressed syllable, that will really help help you to understand what iambic pentameter is, and how it works, and most importantly how it sounds.

So iambic pentameter is used by the famous poet Geoffrey Chaucer, in the Canterbury Tales, okay.

So what we have on the screen are two lines from The Knight's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer, which use the metre of iambic pentameter.

Let's read through them and then we'll think about why Chaucer decided to use iambic pentameter and to stress it in syllables model of this.

Okay, listen very carefully.

That, if/ that Pal/ a mon/ was wound/ed sore.

Arc ite/ is hurt/ as much/ as he,/ or more.

So Chaucer, wants to focus on other stressed syllables.

And if you look at the words that are stressed, such as wound, and sore, and hurt, and much, and he, and more, they are all stressed, because they tell us the most important parts of the story.

Poets often do this, they stress the words that are the most important, so that we focus on the more, okay? Now, obviously we wouldn't read it exactly in the way that I've just read it, because that doesn't sound very natural.

But still, when we are naturally reading these lines in a more natural way, our stressed would still fall on those syllables that are involved, and so we would still focus on those words more and that's done deliberately by the poet because those words are more important, okay? That is a really clever thing that a poet can do, to create rhythm in their poetry and to create meaning in their poetry, okay? So the character Arcite is feeling the same pain, the character Palamon feels when he falls in love with the character Emily, okay? And that's exactly what the poet is trying to tell us here.

And that's the most important part of this story they're trying to get across.

Don't worry if you don't know the story, I know some of you might do because you might have studied it before.

But that doesn't matter too much.

What matters is that you understand what Geoffrey Chaucer, has made sure that the stressed words are the other words that are the most important words that tell us about the story in the poem, okay.

Okay, we've done a lot, a lot of learning, about iambic pentameter, and about metre, and about rhythm in poetry, lots of things for you to think about.

So what you've got to do now, is a task that's going to help you just make sense of everything that we've just been through, okay.

So you've got some questions that are going to test your knowledge of metre in poetry.

But don't worry, because you are very much guided through the answers to those questions.

And then once you've done them, we're going to go through them.

So pause now complete that task, and then resume once you're finished, and we'll go through the responses.

Okay, let's go through and see what you came up with in answers to these questions, okay.

You had some sentence prompts, which I've used on the screen and the answers to these questions.

So let's see if you got these answers right.

If you didn't and you think, I need to change something there, then that's absolutely fine.

I would you encourage you to do that, so that you know that your notes are correct and that next time you look at them, you'll have the right answer there to refer to.

Okay, number one.

What do we mean by stressed and unstressed syllables in a word? In the words we speak, some syllables sound long, and some sound short.

We call the long syllables stressed and short syllables unstressed.

Well done, if you filled in those gaps with the correct words, okay.

If you want to pause and read through it again, and fill in the correct responses, because you might not have got it quite right, and that's absolutely fine.

If you've got that right, brilliant.

Okay, number two.

What do poets use stressed and unstressed syllables to create in their poems? Well, we know that poets use stressed and unstressed syllables to create rhythm in their poems. All about creating that rhythm of sounds there to help to get across their meanings.

What is the metre in a poem? The metre remember is the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.

That's all it is.

It's nothing more complicated than that.

It's just being able to see the inner poem.

There are stressed and unstressed syllables, and about being able to identify the pattern of those syllables, okay.

Number four.

What's special type of metre have you been learning about today? A special type of metre that you've been learning about, is iambic pentameter.

So well done if you got that right.

And finally, for question five, I asked you to copy the line of text that is written in the metre that you've learned about today.

So I gave you two lines and I wanted you to choose the one that's written in iambic pentameter.

So well done if you went for the first line.

As yet but knock, breathe shine and seek to mend.

That is written in iambic pentameter, because we've got five pairs of unstressed and then stressed syllables.

The next one.

Fair is foul and foul is fair, which is taken from the opening scene of a very famous Shakespeare tragedy called Macbeth.

It's written in something called trochaic tetrameter, which is another kind of metre in poetry.

But don't worry about that for now.

We'll come on to that another time, okay.

Amazing work today.

Metre is really complicated.

And I am sure that you've done a brilliant job and you've put all of your focus into learning about metre and its importance in poetry.

This is the end of the unit on, Introduction to Poetry.

You've done brilliantly, so well done and you've learned so many new things about poetry, you can show off to your friends, and to your family members, and to your teachers.

So if you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, or Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and using the hashtag learn with Oak.

If you don't want to share the timeline, you might ask your parents or carers to share it with your teacher.

And I'm sure they'd be super impressed to see what you've been doing because this is not easy stuff, okay.

So share it with Oak.

Finally, just to make sure that our learning about metre is really solid, and that it's stuck in our brains and won't escape.

There's a quiz attached to this lesson, that I'd like you to complete now, okay.

Thank you and well done.

Bye.