Can someone help me explain iambic pentameter to 10yo dd2?

[lucysmam]

Please!

Because she doesn't get it & I'm not doing a very good job of being teacher mum with this one

(If you only clicked to tell me not to bother, then please don't bother...we're happy with our routine atm so will be doing it :) )

The easiest way for a ten year old is to liken it to the heart. A stressed) unstressed beat is a duh dum sound.

I have no idea what this is .

Blank verse @megletthesecond - it’s the form that the sonnets were written in.

What is it she isn’t “getting” OP?

DD has just done this year 10

it is 5 pairs of syllables, unstressed and stressed.

Oft used in sonnets and Shakespeare

shall I com pare thee to a summ er's day

The pent bit in the phrase means 5 (like pentagon)

Try this?

m.youtube.com/watch?v=YuXAbRAcvbw

Five 'light' sounds followed by five 'heavy' sounds, like this:

teTUM-teTUM-teTUM-teTUM-teTUM

Used a lot by Shakespeare, as in this line from one of his sonnets:

"When I do COUNT the CLOCK that TELLS the TIME"

Does she get syllables? Can she take a pen to a sentence and put slashes where they end?

The pow/er of the writ/ten word.

If she can do that she can do iambic pentameter. It’s a meter, like a drum beat, of syllables - Soft-hard - that comes in fives. ‘Pent’ meaning five.

duh-DUM duh-DUM duh-DUM duh-DUM duh-DUM

We were taught to copy the rhythm of strawberry jam pot

Sorry, cross posted with others!

That would be

The/ pow/er/ of/ the/ writ/ten/ word.

Thank you all; she does get syllables! I hadn't thought to break it down like that so we will try that tomorrow (we packed up because we were both getting frustrated).

I've only watched the first video so far but that's explained so much better than me so I'll watch that and the second one linked with her in the morning.

If she's doing it with Shakespeare, she needs to remember what one of my lecturers (and a great Shakespearean) used to say: for Shakespeare, 10 is a number between 9 and 14.

Shakespearean iambic pentameter isn't always very regular (and it's hard if you're new to the language, because some words can be compressed or stretched in Jacobethan English that we wouldn't say like that today).

Listening to someone reading bits (check youtube) can be helpful.

But the main thing to remember is that it's not a science. Different people can and do scan different lines differently - so one person will say yes, definitely regular iambic pentameter with the stress here; another will disagree and say it's irregular.

If you can give us an example of what she's working on, that could help?