Stones at Anau, Turkmenistan June 2007
1 Samuel 17:40 NIV
"Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd's bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine."The first lines of Robert Frost's poem, "Birches" are:
"When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.”
This passage is enough to teach students about Blank Verse, which is unrhymed iambic pentameter.
My problem is I can't count. I try to place the unstressed and stressed marks over syllables, but each successive class period challenges my brain to count to five.
The last class of the day is always tough not only for me, but also for the students as our energy levels are low. It’s no wonder the worst display of my mathematical skills was during this class as I helped three girls explicate "Mending Wall."
I decided I would link the word "pentameter" to "pentagon," so they could remember it meant "five."
I began to draw a pentagon on a piece of paper. Three heads leaned over me as I drew. I explained the concept and counted the sides of the shape as I numbered them, "One, two, three, four, five...six?"
The girls howled in laughter. One explained, "You need to make it like a triangle with an extra side."
I tried again. I drew a triangle, added another side, and saw them rolling backwards in their desks laughing at my twisted square.
Finally, one of the girls rescued me by drawing a five-sided shape and numbering it for me. By now, I was snorting, laughing, and leaning onto the side of one of the girls as I tried to regain my composure.
One of my students exclaimed on her way out the door today, "Yay! I finally understood a poem!"
I hope today I gave them at least five stones to throw at the state test they will face in two weeks.
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Dear Lord, thank you for laughter and learning.
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