How to Teach Rhythm in Writing
- 1). Read an example of good writing out loud. Allow students to read and listen to the example to show how speech changes, and to see how sentences vary in length and pace because of word choices and punctuation. Contrast this by reading a bad example of writing out loud. Writing where there is no variation in tone or sentence length quickly become stilted and lifeless. Reading the two examples back to back can put in perspective what good rhythm sounds like and what bad rhythm sounds like.
- 2). Play examples of conversation or have students talk to each other. Instruct them to listen to speech patterns during conversations. Exercises like this can help students pick up on how speech patterns vary, and how they are supposed to sound out loud before the language is transcribed onto paper.
- 3). Have students read their work out loud. Listening to how their papers sound --- as they are read by both the students themselves and by other students --- allows them to hear what they wrote and what it sounds like. If a student wrote: "The Eiffel Tower is one of the best known towers in the world. It is located in France, where millions of tourists come to see it every year." This piece sounds stilted and repetitive, but that can be hard to assess if you cannot hear it with your own ears. This connection between the rhythm of the writing and the spoken word is very important for students to learn to develop a sense of rhythm.
- 4). Suggest changes and have students read out loud what the paper sounds like after the changes. For instance, the previous passage might be edited to read: "The Eiffel Tower is one of the best known landmarks in the world. The monument is so famous that millions of tourists visit France every year to see it." This version is less repetitive, and it flows better when read out loud because the two sentences have a different cadence and length, making it sound more like regular speech rather than composition. Encourage good grammar and logical sentence structure, but also suggest ways that you can alter sentences to show a better rhythm. Ask students to write as if they were speaking to someone, using the same speech patterns as if the words were being delivered verbally.
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