I stole Bob's post and added stuff. . .
Her warm-up activity to work with rhythms:
Atama 1 clap
Abaku 4 claps in rhythm "CLAP clap-clap-clap"
Laborenna 10 claps in rhythm similar to Abaku "CLAP clap-clap CLAP clap-clap CLAP clap-clap-clap
We then did "The Hacker." You stamp you right foot, then left foot, then bring your right hand to your left shoulder, then your left hand to your right shoulder, and then wave your hands in front of your, eventually pushing them out. The sounds go like this:
hoo-TAH hoo-TAH hoo-TAH hoo-TAH hoo-TAH
We first did with the hoo-tahs. Then we did it with lines from Romeo and Juliet:
"The clock struck nine when I did send the nurse."
"In half an hour she promised to return."
"Perchance she cannot meet him, that's not so."
We then did the same lines only clapping out every syllable. Pat your legs twice, clap twice, snap twice, pat legs twice, clap twice.
The reason why we wanted to really physically get into the rhythms was so that students could really feel the beat in their bodies.
We then were paired up and made up lines of our own to imabic pentameter. For example, "I danced all day and then I took a bath." However, one line that was made up didn't quite fit with the stress of the "Have you eaten breakfast today or not." The stress didn't quite fit with the word "eaten." We don't say "eaTEN." We say "Eaten." So this line was actually a trochee, where the stress is actually inverted.
Iamb: doo-DUM
Trochee: opposite iamb "DUM-doo"
Then we were given the Macbeth speech "Is this a dagger that I see before me?"
We then went through each line and saw which ones had more syllables, 10 syllables, and less syllables. We didn't worry about the stress. We then created a "heart chart" of the monologue. We also discussed those lines with less syllables possibly having pauses to fill the rest of the rhythm.
After this, we did this. . . .
Read speech; move at punctuation.
Read speech; move at end stops only.
We talked about how moving at all punctuation created the "frantic heartbeat" of the character, the inner life of them.
When we moved at the end stops only, it created the thought process of the character. You have to take both into consideration.
When then worked with trochee lines and iambic lines. We first stomped "12345." Then we said "sha-BOOM sha-BOOM sha-BOOM sha-BOOM sha-BOOM." We then said, "Shall I compare the to a summers day." We then said, "BOOM-sha BOOM-sha BOOM-sha BOOM-sha BOOM-sha." And then said, "Never never never never never"
We talked about how would stress the word "Never." We say "NEVer," not "neVER."
We then created "Metric feet." We did this through taking a step in two counts. the first count is foot up. count two is a foot stomp.
We used the following lines:
"Is this a dagger which I see right here" (ENDS ON FOOT DOWN)
"Is this a dagger which I see before me"" (ENDS WITH FOOT UP)
To be or not to be that is the point (ENDS ON FOOT DOWN)
To be or not to be that is the question (ENDS WITH FOOT UP)
In the original it sounds more uncertain because he is stuck with his foot in the air.
We talked about how you should really try to stick with the iambic unless it sounds perverse. For example we used a line from Richard III:
"Die in his you by like untimely violence."
Yolanda just said the line and asked us just front hearing it what word we felt that we should stress. We said "die." So when we stressed die, it sounded okay. . . .and that would make it a torchee line. However, if we stuck with the iambic, if stressed "IN his YOUTH," which is actually where it should be stressed. This is a GREAT lesson in looking at the stressed words in Shakespeare and seeing what the hidden meaning might be.
