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ELA 4: Verses and Stanzas 56 Views


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Description:

Verses vs. Stanzas. Personally, we're betting on the Stanzas to win. They're like four times as big.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:04

[Coop and Dino singing]

00:13

Today we'll be focusing on verses and stanzas, which are parts of poems. [Coop discussing parts of poems]

00:17

So…if you’ve ever got a poem on your operating table, you’ll know what it is you’re looking at

00:22

Let’s go ahead and take a look at an actual poem to show you what we mean.

00:26

Here’s the first section of Mary's Lamb.

00:28

“Mary had a little lamb, Its fleece was white as snow, [Mary's lamb poem scribbled on paper]

00:31

And everywhere that Mary went The lamb was sure to go;

00:35

He followed her to school one day - That was against the rule,

00:38

It made the children laugh and play, To see a lamb at school.”

00:41

First of all, where was the teacher while all this was going on? Seems like grounds

00:45

for disciplinary action if you ask us…

00:47

Anyway, let's start with the term “verse”. [Dino talking about verse]

00:50

A verse is just a single line of a poem. So if we take a look at our sample from Mary's

00:54

Lamb, any time there's a line break – that is, the words stop on one line and start on

00:59

a new line – we identify a separate verse.

01:02

If it were all on ONE line, that would be a uni-verse…which would just be plain confusing. [A poem in the universe]

01:07

But…as written…if someone were to ask you to read one verse from this poem, you

01:12

could say, “Mary had a little lamb,” and be correct. Or you could go with “The lamb [Woman reading a poem]

01:16

was sure to go.” Pick your poison.

01:19

Next is a stanza, which isn't quite as simple. See, a stanza is a group of four or more verses

01:24

that all fit together with the same rhyming scheme.

01:27

So let's take a gander at our poem again, but this time we’ll look for rhymes. [Girl looking through binoculars]

01:31

The first four lines end with “lamb, snow, went, go.” Lamb and went don't rhyme, but

01:36

snow and go do.

01:38

In the next section, we have “day, rule, play, school.” Day and play rhyme, and so

01:43

do rule and school.

01:44

We can see that these two different sections are grouped together in order to rhyme, so

01:49

it's safe to say that the first four verses here are one stanza… [First stanza of poem highlighted]

01:52

…and the next four lines here are a stanza…

01:55

…because they are groups of at least four lines that rhyme with each other.

01:59

Great. So a verse is just another word for a line of poetry, and a stanza is a group

02:04

of verses that rhyme. [Dino summarizing verse and stanzas]

02:04

Of course, all of this goes out the window if we're talking about “Free Verse poetry”. [Man jumps out of a window]

02:11

Free Verse is another type of poem, like limerick, or haiku.

02:15

But unlike a limerick, which has set rules, free verse is a style that is basically a

02:19

total free-for-all, where the writer can make and break any rule in the book.

02:23

It can rhyme, but it doesn’t have to, and usually doesn’t. It can be short, or long, [Different types of poems on a PC screen]

02:27

or anywhere in between. It can make lots of sense and tell a story, or it can be a series

02:32

of totally random words.

02:33

Let’s be honest. It is utter chaos. [A cow mooing in a field]

02:36

Remember how Mary's Lamb had a rhyming structure and told a story about Mary and her little

02:40

lamb?

02:41

Well now take a look at this poem, which is a free verse poem, called Fog, by Carl Sandburg.

02:46

“The fog comes on little cat feet.

02:49

It sits looking over harbor and city

02:51

on silent haunches and then moves on.”

02:54

No rhyming there! No real structure. Hard to find any stanzas. And fog on little cat [Cat walks across a poem]

02:59

feet sure sounds strange. That right there is definitely a free verse poem.

03:03

What makes free verse poetry so much fun is that, because there are no rules, a writer [Girl taking selfie outside the White House]

03:08

can do anything they want.

03:11

Looking to spice up a shopping list? How about:

03:13

“Orange juice, milk and a dozen eggs

03:15

drop, drop, drop one by one into the cart [A free verse poem of a shopping list]

03:18

whoops shouldn’t have put the eggs in first.”

03:21

Not bad, right? Move over, Carl Sandburg. [Person shoves book off a table]

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