Create Your Own Sonnet

There are three parts to this final section of the poetry project:shakes

  1. Learn about the structure and rhythm of sonnets, explicate Sonnet 29, and take a sonnet quiz.
  2. Create your own sonnet.
  3. Perform/recite a sonnet.

 

a, Learn about the structure and rhythm of sonnets, explicate Sonnet 29, and take a sonnet quiz.

Build and explicate a Sonnet: 

Some tips about sonnets:

  • Each line has 10 syllables…be careful, though; it might look as though some of these lines don’t have this number of syllables, but they do!

 

  • In this kind of sonnet, the lines rhyme in an abab cdcd efef gg pattern:
    • Lines 1 and 3 rhyme
    • 2 and 4
    • 5 and 7
    • 6 and 8
    • 9 and 11
    • 10 and 12
    • 13 and 14  (known as a rhyming couplet)
  • There is generally a full-stop (semicolon, period, an exclamation point, or a question mark) at the end of Line 8 and at the end of line 14.  

Now see if you can put together the lines of Sonnet 29 by following the tips and these clues:

  • Line 1 ends with a part of the body.
    Line 2 uses words that mean being by oneself.
    Line 4 begins with a conjunction and ends with a comma.
    Line 6 uses repetition.
    Line 10 contains alliteration.
    Line 11 contains a simile.
  • The last line uses a word meaning “royalty.”

Explicate the Sonnet Quiz

Part B 

Create your own sonnet.

Building a Sonnet

Follow the sonnet requirements:

  • 14 lines,
  • abab cdcd efef gg rhyme scheme,
  • 10 syllables per line,
  • poetic techniques such as imagery, personification, alliteration, metaphor, simile, etc.).

In this sonnet, you can be serious, comical,  and/or reflective. But, most of all, be creative and follow the sonnet requirements.

Part C 

Recite a sonnet.  

Memorize either a Shakespearean sonnet or the one you created and perform it to the class. You may recite this live or in a video shown in class.

 

print

Print Friendly, PDF & Email