To Rhyme or Not to Rhyme

Take the following as an example. A slash mark like this / signals the end of a line.

The cat/ sat on a mat/ The dog/ will hog/ the log./ Mice play/ in the forest./ When you determine the rhyme scheme of a poem, you use the same letters of the alphabet to mark the words that rhyme and use a different letter for a new sound, and so on.

In the preceding brilliantly written poem, catends the first line. So we label that A. Matends the second line. Since it rhymes with cat, we label the second line A also.

The third line ends with dog, a new sound, so we label that B. The fourth and fifth lines end with hogand logwhich rhyme with dog. So we label both of those lines B also. The sixth line ends in play, a different sound from the other lines. We label it C. The last line ends in forest, another new sound. It should be labeled D.

Hence, (an official sounding word which means something like "Oh, I get it now.") the rhyme scheme of this brilliant poem is A-A-B-B-B-C-D.

Assignment 1: In order to work up to a rhyming poem slowly we will begin with rhyming words. Write words that rhyme or don't rhyme according to the patterns below.

1. A A 2. A 8. A B B A A B 3. A C B C A B 9. A B 4. A A B B B C A D C 5. A D B C 10. A A B B B A 6. A C B D C C A D B C 11. A B 7. A C B D B A A B C C C D Assignment 2: I bet you can guess what your assignment is. You are going to write four rhyming poems following some of the patterns from the preceding exercise.