After this activity, students should be able to:

• Use a full range of strategies to comprehend poetry.
• Choose vocabulary and figures of speech that communicate clearly.
• Draft, revise, edit and proofread for a legible final copy.
• Recognize stylistic elements such as voice, tone and style.
• Use reading, writing, speaking, listening and viewing skills to solve problems and answer questions.
• Read, respond to and discuss literature that represents points of view from places, people, and events that are familiar and unfamiliar.
• Distinguish the elements that characterize and define a literary "classic."
• Compare the diverse voices of our national experience as they read a variety of U.S. literature.
• Use literary terminology accurately, including theme and figurative language.
• Use new vocabulary from literature in other context.

An animation of a pendulum arc. click for copyright

The definition of rhythm, according to The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition:

1. Movement or variation characterized by the regular recurrence or alternation of different quantities or conditions: the rhythm of the tides.
2. The patterned, recurring alternations of contrasting elements of sound or speech.
3. Music.

a. The pattern of musical movement through time.

b. A specific kind of such a pattern, formed by a series of notes differing in duration and stress: a waltz rhythm.

c. A group of instruments supplying the rhythm in a band.

a. The pattern or flow of sound created by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables in accentual verse or of long and short syllables in quantitative verse.

b. The similar but less formal sequence of sounds in prose.

c. A specific kind of metrical pattern or flow: iambic rhythm.

a. The sense of temporal development created in a work of literature or a film by the arrangement of formal elements such as the length of scenes, the nature and amount of dialogue, or the repetition of motifs.

b. A regular or harmonious pattern created by lines, forms, and colors in painting, sculpture, and other visual arts.

6. The pattern of development produced in a literary or dramatic work by repetition of elements such as words, phrases, incidents, themes, images, and symbols.
7. Procedure or routine characterized by regularly recurring elements, activities, or factors: the rhythm of civilization; the rhythm of the lengthy negotiations.

Source: Dictionary.com, http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=rhythm.

Obviously, rhythm is a rich concept with application in many areas. Notice how often the word "pattern" appears in the definitions. Other important terms are "regular," "repetition," "recurring" and "alternation." Rhythm is essentially a repeating pattern.

This repetition of pattern powerfully assists memory and learning. Think of the simple but compelling patterns of rhyme and rhythm of the Dr. Seuss books, including the classic Green Eggs and Ham, the best-selling Seuss book of all time. Notice how the lines have the back-and forth rhythm of a pendulum.

Do you like green eggs and ham?

I do not like them, Sam-I-am.

I do not like green eggs and ham.

You can feel your body sway back and forth as you are carried along by the rhythm. Not all poetry is this regular, of course, and there are many rhyming patterns. The rhythm of poetry is measured by its meter and counted by means of a unit called a foot, which is composed of a pattern of stressed ( / ) and unstressed ( ^ ) syllables. There are several types of metrical feet, which have names derived from Greek: iambic ( ^ / ), trochaic ( / ^ ) , anapestic ( ^ ^ / ) and dactylic ( / ^ ^ ). For this activity, it is not essential for you to know all the different metrical types (there are several more). For now, just notice the pendulum-like effect of the trochaic line:

/^/^/^/

Do you like green eggs and ham?

…and the iambic lines:

^/^/^/^/

I do not like them, Sam-I-am.

^/^/^/^/

I do not like green eggs and ham.

Iambic meter is the most common in English verse. It is said to be most like the natural rhythm of English speech. For additional introductory information on the meter of poetry see the References section.

The theme for this activity — rhythm — takes its cue from the mechanical oscillation of a pendulum, as explained in Mechanics unit, Lesson 9.

In the immortal words of Duke Ellington, "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing." "It" includes everything from the beating of our hearts, to the ebb and flow of tides, to the rotation of pulsars. This literacy activity is a celebration of rhythm in its many cultural forms — music, poetry, art and dance. The activities included are only a starting point for students to begin a lifelong exploration of the wonders of rhythm.

Observing

Thinking

Writing

And you, O my Soul, where you stand,

Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, — seeking the spheres, to connect them;

Till the bridge you will need, be form'd — till the ductile anchor hold;

Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.

Now, try writing a poem yourself. You might want to experiment with the fun rhymes and meters of Dr. Seuss or the stirring free verse rhythms of Walt Whitman. You could first try closely imitating the poet's meter, using your own subject. What metrical foot is used throughout the following Emily Dickinson verse and the imitator? (Answer: Iambic [ ^ / ])

Emily Dickinson original:

Because I could not stop for Death —

He kindly stopped for me —

The Carriage held but just ourselves —

And Immortality.

Sample imitation:

Because the car ran out of gas

I had to walk a mile

I met a troll along the way

We walked and talked a while.

Source: A Brief Guide to Poetic Imitation, Honors Program, University of Nevada at Reno, 2004, formerly located at www.honors.unr.edu/~fenimore/en297/imitate.html.

Activities on the topic of rhythm are potentially endless; below are just a few suggestions. Students can make observations in their journals about the activity, or write a brief report, essay or poem about their understanding.

• In Sync — Learn about pendulum clocks and the phenomenon of synchronization. See Out of Time, in which researchers recreate a 1665 clock experiment to gain insights into modern synchronized oscillators. (Source: Out of Time, Research Horizons, Georgia Tech Research News, http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/reshor/rh-f00/time.html) Think about what it means to say someone or something is "in sync" with someone or something else.
• All that Jazz — Play Duke Ellington or other jazz greats in class. For starters, try Ellington's "Take the 'A' Train" or the long version of Benny Goodman's "Sing, Sing, Sing" from his Carnegie Hall concert. Learn more about the different types of jazz and their distinctive rhythmic signatures. For more ideas and information, see All About Jazz, http://www.allaboutjazz.com/.
• Stomp! — Create your own Stomp group. Stomp is an exciting modern dance troupe using everyday objects in non-traditional ways. To learn more, visit Stomp, http://www.stomponline.com, and Percussion for Kids, http://www.stomponline.com/percuss1.html.
• Got Game? — Think of all the ways that a good sense of rhythm improves performance in sport and helps athletes get "into the zone" — from the rhythmic dribbling of a basketball to the even strokes of a swimmer to the steady pumping of a marathoner's legs.
• Tête-à-tête — In conversation, as in all areas of life, it is good to have a sense of give and take. Pay attention to the rhythm of your speech, especially when you are talking with someone else. Good communication has a kind of pendulum swing — tête-à-tête, as the French say, from head-to-head — with neither partner dominating the conversation. Practice taking turns listening and speaking, and develop the rhythm of give and take.

• The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh, 1889. The artist painted furiously and his painting vibrates with rockets of burning yellow while planets gyrate like cartwheels. The hills quake and heave, yet the cosmic gold fireworks that swirl against the blue sky are somehow restful. click for copyright

  The Rhythm of the Night — Visual art can also convey a sense of rhythm. Does the swirl in Van Gogh's "Starry Night" painting remind you of anything? (Answer: The swirl defined by the pendulum arc in the introductory graphical animation.) Visit a local art museum to explore how works of visual art incorporate rhythmic elements or convey a sense of rhythm or balance.

Jazz. The Web's Ultimate Guide to Jazz. Accessed May 15, 2004. All About Jazz. http://www.allaboutjazz.com/

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language. Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000. Source of "rhythm" definition. Available online at: http://www.dictionary.com

DeSerio, Robert. "Chaotic Pendulum: The Complete Attractor." American Journal of Physics. Vol. 71, pp. 250-257, 2003. (Source of animated gif of chaos movement. Used with permission. See http://www.phys.ufl.edu/courses/phy4803L. Accessed August 12, 2004.)

Dictionary.com. Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. Accessed May 15, 2004. (Source of vocabulary definitions, with some adaptation) http://www.dictionary.com

Klawitter, George. Scansion. Updated July 23, 2000. Poetics, St. Edward's University, Austin, TX. Accessed May 15, 2004. (A basic introduction to scansion) http://myweb.stedwards.edu/georgek/poetics/scansion.html

Percussion for Kids. Stomp. Accessed May 15, 2004. http://www.stomponline.com

Rhythm, Meter and Scansion Made Easy. Mr. Black's 5th and 6th Grade English Page, Riverdale, Oregon. Accessed May 15, 2004. http://server.riverdale.k12.or.us/~bblack/meter.html

Stomp, The International Percussion Sensation. Accessed May 15, 2004. http://www.stomponline.com

Toon, John. Out of Time. Updated September 10, 2000. Georgia Tech Research Horizons. Accessed May 15, 2004. (Researchers recreate 1665 clock experiment to gain insights into modern synchronized oscillators.) http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/reshor/rh-f00/time.html