Teaching Trochees: Children must learn about metre in poems (ie stresses). Trochees have the heavy stress first followed by a light stress, eg: HUMPty DUMPty. The following poem should help them. I've emboldened the heavy first stresses (the trochees) for them to clap on the words. They can then count 4 trochees per line. This should help them understand metre in its simplest form. They will find this lots of fun and can easily lead them to make sentences in the same way themselves. eg: A list of tasks: CLEAR aWAY the DINner THINGS. MAKE my BED and TIDy UP. It is quite normal to have poems written with trochees ending on a strong stressed note. (See Blake's TYGER TYGER BURNING BRIGHT. The extra initial unstressed word in last line is also quite normal. I've put it in for emphasis.
Paint away the winter’s grey
Blow the stormy clouds away
Drive away the winter cold
Fill the world with sunshine gold.
Colour flowers of every hue
Paint the sky with lots of blue
Golden sand, and sapphire seas
Poppies blowing in the breeze.
Blue for bluebells, red the rose,
Green banks where the primrose grows,
Through your window, winter’s here -
YOUR picture shows that summer’s near.
Copyright 2008
www.whiteheadm.co.uk
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Don't understand
Written by brickle (7 comments posted) 25th March 2008 |
| If trochees have a heavy stress followed by a light stress,where is the light stress at the end of the lines ? Four heavy beats seem to need four light stresses to make up the line in trochees with eight syllables to the line. And I cannot follow the stresses of the last line . |
Written by Josie (2780 comments posted) 25th March 2008 |
Hello Brickle
Ah, I see you are interested in metre! Good. You must come to our Poets' Tavern where some of us are working our way through Stephen Fry's Book "The Ode Less Travelled" and it explains this. It is the same with iambic feet. If you have a word which ends in an "ing" or "ly" etc you don't just chop it off, and the same with trochees, you can finish on a firm stress. Please come and see what we are doing. We'd love you to join us. |
ESPECIALLY FOR BRICKLE
Written by Josie (2780 comments posted) 25th March 2008 |
On the subject of the trochees, it is indeed very difficult in English, to write a poem which contains words which end in a long syllable on each line, for our language isn't made like that. The one that stands out in my mind is about Hiawatha by Longfello:
On the Mountains of the Prairie,
On the great Red Pipe-stone Quarry,
Gitche Manito, the mighty,
He the Master of Life, descending,
On the red crags of the quarry
Stood erect, and called the nations,
Called the tribes of men together.
I have tried, and got a little way this morning:
Silvery mist sweeps o’er the mountain –
Water bubbles from the fountain
People gather, talk and listen
Dewdrops sit on grass and glisten.
Fish ponds flanked by rows of fruit trees
Birds that sing and gentle breezes
Colonnaded gardens grand
In this long forgotten land.
I would like to challenge others to try to finish this poem which I am writing. It is about Persian Gardens. You will see the difficulty in finding words which end with a light strees.
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Written by punchy (500 comments posted) 25th March 2008 |
Dunno about stresses but I really like the poem.
Paula x |
Written by Veronica_Milvus (605 comments posted) 25th March 2008 |
I rather liked your example poem. Vibrant! On the subject of docking syllables, we need to check with the Book (The OLT) but I think you can do chop off a weak syllable and it still counts as a trochaic line. See my comment to Patterjeck's recent post.
Did you ever see the Hiawatha parody that starts
Hiawatha made him mittens
made em with the skinside outside
made em with the furside inside... |
Thank you
Written by Josie (2780 comments posted) 25th March 2008 |
Thank you Punchy and Veronica. Stephen Fry says on page 65, that it is quite normal to finish trochaic verse on a heavy stress because in English, most words end that way. No different than finishing iambic feet with a soft/weak stress. You wouldn't cut the "ing" off coming, just to stick to the rules. William Blake wrote:
TYger TYger BURNing BRIGHT etc - - - one of the most famous trochaic poems, but he didn't write BRIGHTLY just to make it right. Of course not. You use stresses to enhance your poems, not to put you in iron chains, as every good poet knows. Children will like this simple poem and can practise lists of jobs with (a) a stresssed ending as above and some with unstressed endings such as (b) MAKE the BEDS and CLEAN the WINDows etc (which has the soft stress at the end) etc. Good class exercise.
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