Ask your students to read Shakespeare's Sonnet #18 aloud at least three times. Reciting and hearing a poem reveals much more about the rhythm than reading alone ever can. You may want to help by slightly emphasizing every second syllable.
Ask your students to identify the stresses in the verse. You can enhance this point by getting your students to recite the verse again, this time clapping at each stress. Repeat this until you feel confident that your students have clearly identified the stresses.
Ask your students to count the number of stresses in each line. If you have used the suggested sonnet, there are five stresses per line.
Have your students write on their blank paper the terms to describe each meter and the number of stresses that each term indicates: monometer = 1, dimeter = 2, trimeter = 3, tetrameter = 4, pentameter = 5, hexameter = 6, heptameter = 7 and octameter = 8.
Ask your students to choose the appropriate term, based on the list in Step 4, to describe a line of five stresses.