Reception Assignment: Orpheus & Eurydice

This past semester in Latin III, we read an adaptation of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The version we read was inspired by the versions found in Vergil and Ovid. Once we finished that version, we read my own adaptation of Plato's version of the ending of the myth. In the most famous version of the myth, Orpheus descends to the Underworld to retrieve his deceased wife, Eurydice. Hades/Pluto and Persephone/Proserpina allow Eurydice to leave the Underworld with Orpheus, provided that he not turn around and look at her until they have returned to the world of the living. Plato, on the other hand, briefly summarizes a different version: Since Orpheus (unlike Alcestis for Admetus) did not die to be reunited with his beloved Eurydice, Hades and Persephone deem him unworthy of her and instead send Orpheus away with, unbeknownst to him, an imitation of her. 

After we read both these endings, I wanted students to not only explain the differences between the two versions, but also examine the reception of the myth in different media, since it is such a famous myth. Hence this assignment, which requires students to watch or listen to three different reimaginations of the myth: Carlos Diegues' 1999 film Orfeu, Anaïs Mitchell's 2006 musical Hadestown, and Christoph Willibald Gluck's 2022 opera production of Orpheus and Eurydice (Orfeo ed Euridice). I chose three scenes for students to examine and compare/contrast to the myth we had read in class. Lastly, students were required to summarize the differences between the two endings of the myth, explain in their own opinions why the Vergilian/Ovidian ending has been the more popular of the two, and then explain in their own opinions why the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in general has been so popular and reimagined so many times across different time periods and places.

Here are the slides with all the videos/songs and prompts embedded:

Cuius sunt haec vestigia? (Whose footprints are these?) Listening Activity

Here in Gwinnett County, Georgia we are day #2 into digital learning, so I finally have some time (and sleep and energy!) to catch up on my blog. Here is an activity that I did with my Latin II classes over a month ago:

As I mentioned previously, my Latin II classes read my adapted translation of Homeric Hymn 4 to Hermes, in which Mercury/Hermes famously steals Apollo's cattle. While Apollo is looking for his cattle, he finds their footprints, which inspired this activity.

Here's how it works:

• Students first see the footprints of a particular animal projected onto the board. They may guess the animal (in English, since they do not know/need to know the names of most animals - even I don't know some of them!).
• If students cannot guess the animal, then I read three statements in Latin. After each statement, I allowed students to guess again.
• If students could not guess after the three statements, then I revealed the answer.
• In one class, I had students form teams and write their guesses on a sheet of notebook paper. After each statement, they could write their guess and run up to me. The first team to get the correct answer "won" that round.
• Nota bene: I used a lot of gestures to convey words that students would not know, like "tail."

This activity was a fun and visual way to engage students in listening to the target language! It also offered lots of repetitions of the demonstrative hic "this," which has 16 different forms in Latin, which makes it a challenge to teach!


The slideshow:


The script I read aloud:

• Slide 2:
• Hoc animal est avis. Haec avis est maxima. Haec avis est signum dei Iovis. Haec avis quoque est signum “USA.” (This animal is a bird. This bird is very large. This bird is the symbol of the god Jupiter. This bird is also the symbol of the USA.)
  

• Slide 3:
• Hoc animal solet habitare et in aqua et in terra. Hoc animal longa crura habet. Hoc animal longam linguam habet. Kermit est tale animal. (This animal usually lives both in water and on land. This animal has long legs. This animal has a long tongue. Kermit is this kind of animal.)
  

• Slide 4:
• Hoc animal est avis. Haec avis solet habitare et in aqua et in terra. Haec avis solet comedi a hominibus. Donald est talis avis. (This animal is a bird. This bird usually lives both in water and on land. This bird is usually eaten by people. Donald is this kind of bird.)
  

• Slide 5:
• Hoc animal est magnum. Hoc animal solet habitare in silvis et in montibus. Hoc animal est simile cani. Hoc animal est notissimum Romae. (This animal is large. This animal usually lives in forests and on mountains. This animal is similar to a dog. This animal is very famous in Rome.)
  

• Slide 6:
• Hoc animal est maximum. Hoc animal solet habitare et in terra et in aqua. Hoc animal habitat in Georgia. Hoc animal est notissimum in Florida. (This animal is very large. This animal usually lives both on land and in water. This animal lives in Georgia. This animal is very famous in Florida.)
  

• Slide 7:
• Hoc animal est parvum. Hoc animal solet habitare in domo. Hoc animal longam caudam habet. Sylvester est tale animal. (This animal is small. This animal usually lives in a house. This animal has a long tail. Sylvester is this kind of animal.)
  

• Slide 8:
• Hoc animal est magnum. Hoc animal solet habitare in silvis. Hoc animal habitat in Georgia. Bambi est tale animal. (This animal is large. This animal usually lives in forests. This animal lives in Georgia. Bambi is this kind of animal.)
  

• Slide 9:
• Hoc animal solet esse magnum vel parvum. Hoc animal solet habitare in domo. Hoc animal est amicum. Scooby-Doo est tale animal. (This animal is usually large or small. This animal usually lives in a house. This animal is friendly. Scooby-Doo is this kind of animal.)
  

• Slide 10:
• Hoc animal est maximum. Hoc animal potest currere. Romanis placuit hoc animal. Donkey in Shrek 2 factus est tale animal. (This animal is very large. This animal is able to run. The Romans liked this animal. Donkey in Shrek 2 became this kind of animal.)
  

• Slide 11:
• Hoc animal est maximum. Hoc animal solet habitare in silvis. Hoc animal est signum dei Bacchi. Hoc animal est signum Parkview. (This animal is very large. This animal usually lives in forests. This animal is the symbol of the god Bacchus. This animal is the symbol of Parkview.)
  

• Slide 12:
• Hoc animal est maximum. Hoc animal habitat in Georgia. Hoc animal solet habitare in silvis et in montibus. (This animal is very large. This animal lives in Georgia. This animal usually lives in forests and in mountains.)
  

• Slide 13:
• Hoc animal est parvum. Hoc animal habitat in Georgia. Hoc animal longam caudam habet. Sandy in Spongebob est tale animal. (This animal is small. This animal lives in Georgia. This animal has a long tail. Sandy in Spongebob is this kind of animal.)
  

• Slide 14:
• Hoc animal solet habitare et in terra et in aqua. Hoc animal solet habitare prope flumen. Hoc animal magnam caudam et magnos dentes habet. (This animal usually lives both on earth and in water. This animal usually lives near a river. This animal has a large tail and large teeth.)
  

• Slide 15:
• Hoc animal habitat in Georgia. Hoc animal noctu exit. Hoc animal longam caudam habet. Rocket in Guardians of the Galaxy est tale animal. (This animal lives in Georgia. This animal comes out at night. This animal has a long tail. Rocket in Guardians of the Galaxy is this kind of animal.)
  

• Slide 16:
• Hoc animal habitat in Georgia. Hoc animal noctu exit. Hoc animal solet ferre catulos. Hoc animal longam caudam habet. (This animal lives in Georgia. This animal comes out at night. This animal usually carries its young. This animal has a long tail.)
  

• Slide 17: 
• Hoc animal est magnum. Hoc animal solet habitare in silvis. Noli tangere hoc animal! (This animal is large. This animal usually lives in forests. Do not touch this animal!)
  

• Slide 18:
• Hoc animal est parvum. Hoc animal longam caudam habet. Hoc animal male olet. Pepe Le Pew est tale animal. (This animal is small. This animal has a long tail. This animal smells bad. Pepe Le Pew is this kind of animal.) 

 

Lucky/Unlucky QR Code Scavenger Hunt

For the past week, my Latin II classes have been reading my adapted version of Homeric Hymn 4 to Hermes. In the Greek text, Hermes (as a less-than-a-day-old baby) finds a tortoise and brings it home, saying, "ἐπηλυσίης πολυπήμονος ἔσσεαι ἔχμα (you will protect against painful witchcraft)" (line 37). After reading this curious line, I looked into references to other positive uses for tortoises in the ancient Mediterranean world. All this prompted me to encourage discussion in my Latin II classes on luck and superstition in ancient Mediterranean cultures and beyond. 

As part of this, I created a QR code scavenger hunt (if you're unfamiliar with a QR code scavenger hunt or a QR running dictation, check out this post from my colleagues, Miriam Patrick and Rachel Ash) so my students could read (in Latin) about various lucky/unlucky signs from across the world. 

Each QR code contains two Latin sentences. The first, which students copy down, describes something considered lucky or unlucky and the culture/country. The second sentence contains the clue for the location of the next QR code.

Once students have found and copied down all the sentences, they choose their favorite among both the lucky signs and the unlucky signs and then draw and color both.

Here are the examples I used:

• The number eight is lucky in China.
• If the first guest of the new year is a good person, then it is good luck in Vietnam.
• The number four is unlucky in China and Japan.
• Ladybugs are lucky in Turkey.
• Coyotes are unlucky if encountered while traveling, according to the Navajo.
• A white elephant is lucky in Thailand.
• A black witch moth is unlucky in Mexico.
• If your hair is cut on the seventeenth or twenty-ninth day of the month, you will not go bald, according to the ancient Romans.
• The number nine is unlucky in Japan.
• The cat Maneki-neko is lucky in Japan.

Maneki-neko

Here are some samples of students' work:

Dream Interpretation Activity

In Latin III this year we have been reading Andrew Olimpi's novella Perseus et Rex Malus. One of the characters, Danae, has a strange dream that results in her...(spoiler alert) getting pregnant.

More on that later. 

About a year or so ago, I read J.C. McKeown's delightful A Cabinet of Roman Curiosities: Strange Tales and Surprising Facts from the World's Greatest Empire, a book, which - as the name suggests - offers amusing facts about the ancient Romans and interesting insights into Roman culture that the literary and material sources provide. I would recommend the book to teachers and anyone with an interest in ancient Rome. I enjoyed it so much that I can't wait to read the other books in McKeown's series on ancient Greece and ancient Greek and Roman medicine. Of course I would also recommend Anthony Kaldellis' A Cabinet of Byzantine Curiosities: Strange Tales and Surprising Facts from the World's Most Orthodox Empire so that you may get a comprehensive overview of Greek and Roman civilization. 😉


Just by coincidence, I was going through my bookmarks in McKeown's book a few weeks ago and stumbled upon his chapter titled "Religion and Superstition." There I had marked a set of amusing ancient Roman interpretations of different types of dreams from the second-century AD writer Artemidorus' Oneirocritica (or Interpretation of Dreams). Here are my "school appropriate" favorites (translated by McKeown):

• Dreaming that one is blind is favorable for runners, since a runner who takes the lead in a race is like a blind man in that he does not see his fellow runners...Such dreams are auspicious for poets also, since they need total calm when they are going to compose, and loss of sight would ensure that they are not distracted by shapes of colors (1.26).
•  Dreaming about turnips, rutabagas, and pumpkins presages disappointed hopes, since they are massive but lack nutritional value. They signify surgery and woundings with iron implements for sick people and travelers, respectively, since these vegetables are cut into slices (1.67).
• Dreaming that one is eating books foretells advantage to teachers, lecturers, and anyone who earns his livelihood from books, but everyone else it means sudden death (2.45). (I'm sure this is a favorite among Latin teachers!) 
• Dreaming that one is dead or is being crucified foretells marriage for a bachelor (2.49, 53).
• Dreaming that one is eating many onions is favorable for a sick man, for it means he will recover and mourn for someone else, whereas dreaming that one is eating just a few onions signifies death, since the dying shed just a few tears, whereas those who mourn shed many (4.55).
• A man dreamed that he had a mouth with big, beautiful teeth in his rectum, and that through it he spoke, ate, and performed all the normal functions of a mouth. He was subsequently exiled from his homeland for making incautious statements. I have not included the reasons, for the outcome was easily predictable (5.68).  

There is one more that I love, but you'll need to check out McKeown's book for that one!

Back to my Latin III classes...since we had just read about a strange dream in the novella, I decided to create an activity around ancient Roman interpretations of dreams, as published by Artemidorus, and have students get their own dream interpreted. 

Based on my choose your own adventure activity from this past spring, I created a similar activity in Google Forms. 

First, students access the form electronically through a link or QR code. 

Second, students select a dream that they "had." The options are food, eating books, a bodily condition, or death. I tried to include as many pictures as possible throughout the form to aid comprehension.

The first page of the form

Next, students answer various questions based on their original and subsequent responses until they get an ancient Roman interpretation for their strange dream. 

How did I use this activity in my classroom?

I used this activity as a warm-up last week, the crazy, absence-filled week before our (week-long) Thanksgiving break. 

Students completed the activity on their phones and submitted their results both electronically and on paper. 

I provided some helpful vocabulary and the QR code for activity on my daily warm-up worksheet.

My warm-up worksheet

When everyone had submitted their results, everyone in the class quickly shared their results. I also elaborated on the interpretations and why they made sense. That onion one is especially profound! 

In my second period class, most students were told that they were going to get married soon, so apparently that class said that they dreamed about death! Should I be concerned?

If you'd like to try out my form to see all the options and embedded questions, click here.

Story Character Instagram Posts

If you've gathered anything from reading my blog, it's that I'm not a teacher who takes things too seriously (did you notice the name of my blog?!). I've always had a cheeky and silly side (they don't call me Iohannes Lascivus for nothing!), which I love to bring to my classroom. 

In the past two weeks, my Latin II classes read a story version that I wrote based on the film Snack Attack, which I first presented as a Movie Talk (or whatever they're called nowadays, again my cheeky and snarky side coming out!). To practice with vocabulary and demonstrate their comprehension of the Latin story, students created Instagram posts for one of the two characters, the old woman (anus in Latin, yes, you read that correctly) or the young man (iuvenis in Latin). Students were required to create these Instagram posts as their chosen character's reactions to the events in the story/film. Students could also be creative and have fun by using Latin hashtags that I wrote or by giving their character a funny username (my favorites are Instagranny and Best_anus_ever). 

It is worth mentioning that I do not have an Instagram account, so the inspiration for this assignment came from my impressions of the most ridiculous of Instagram tropes (e.g. shameless self-promotion, oversharing, glorification of the mundane), but, again, I'm all for irreverence and camp. 

Here is the slideshow with the instructions and a sample created by yours truly (pardon the quality of the drawing and handwriting):

Here is the worksheet (one side for the students to create their posts and the other side with Latin hashtags that I wrote):
 
To see the worksheet in its original formatting, click here. 

---

Samples of student work:

That username! 😂

Best_username_ever!

Story Matching Activity

The new year is in full swing and I am almost in my sixth (!) week of the year (I already am if pre-planning counts!). What have I been up to since my last post? The last academic year came to an end and I went to the ACL Institute in New York. It was my first time at ACL, so it was fun meeting people whose work I have admired from online (where do I begin? Jenn Jarnagin, John Bracey, John Piazza, Lance Piantaggini, Chris Buczek, Justin Slocum Bailey) and catch up with former colleagues. I want to write a post about the changes I've made to my teaching for this academic year eventually.


Back to the topic of this post...

Here is an activity that I did with my Latin II students this past week. Based on the survey I gave to my Latin I students last year, they said that they wanted to continue reading Greco-Roman myths, which made up the majority of the texts we read in Latin I. This year, so far we have read two stories based on the myths of the god Vulcan/Hephaestus, inspired by stories originally written by Keith Toda and Rachel Ash and modified and extended by me. The first story covers Juno/Hera throwing Vulcan/Hephaestus off Mount Olympus. The second part covers Vulcan/Hephaestus' scheme to trap Juno/Hera in a chair that he made, the gods' attempts to bring him back to free Juno/Hera, and Bacchus/Dionysus getting Vulcan/Hephaestus drunk to convince him to return to Mount Olympus. We have been covering the second part for the past two weeks, so I created this tactile and interactive activity as we begin to wrap up our time with this story.

The activity is simple: I created a storyboard for the story using StoryboardThat (see this post from last year about my experiences with it). I printed out the storyboard (with the text cropped out) and the matching sets of sentences from the story and cut them into individual strips. 

Colours of the world! Spice up your Latin!

What did students do? In groups (in chairs, on whiteboards, on the floor), they

• Match each set of sentences with the appropriate picture.
• Put the matches of sentences/pictures in the correct order in which they appear in the story.

Different colors=no problems!

A few considerations:

• I printed each set in a different color for aesthetics and to prevent the sets from getting mixed. 
• Students completed this activity entirely from memory. As I mentioned above, they have been reading this for over a week now, so I would only use this activity after students are already very familiar with the story.
• Cutting out the pictures and sentence sets for nine groups of students took me about 4 hours. I love these types of activities, but this drawback makes me only do this a few times a year. Maybe I need student aides? 

Spend 4 hours cutting things out because I'm a control freak vs. Save time by having students cut things out 

The activity took about 15-20 minutes and not a single group struggled with recalling the story, so I was very satisfied with the outcome!

Graffiti from the Romans to Today

For the past few years of teaching the first level of Latin (Latin 101 and Latin I), I have included a fun end-of-the-year day of looking at funny, obscene, and salacious graffiti left by Latin speakers. I decided to continue this tradition, but I was inspired to put a new spin on it this year. Instead of simply translating and commenting on samples of graffiti, I have expanded the lesson to include an exploration into the contemporary points of view on graffiti.

Here's the lesson plan:

1) I introduced the topic of graffiti via the first few slides in the slideshow. We created a class definition of graffiti before looking at the dictionary entry for the word. We also explored the issue: are graffiti art, a crime, or both? 

2) I introduced the Latin vocabulary for agreeing and disagreeing. Then each student received 8 stickers with which to express their opinion on 8 statements posted around the classroom. After students responded to the statements and returned to their seats, I summarized the results.

3) Returning to the slideshow, we examined several misconceptions about graffiti: Only gangs and criminals make graffiti. (We watched a video from last month on graffiti as a form of political expression in Sudan), We can learn a lot from graffiti. (I presented the importance of graffiti to the study of Latin and its speakers, especially as a means for the non-elites to have a voice), and Most people feel the same way about graffiti (We examined perspectives on graffiti that differ from the negativity that we have in the US). 

4) We then read examples of Roman and medieval graffiti, inscriptions, and proverbs. A couple were talking epitaphs and a few were toilet humor graffiti - all of which got strong reactions from the class.


The slideshow:



The consensus statements posted around the classroom:
Click here to view the document in its original formatting.

Samples from one of my classes:

The worksheet with Latin graffiti, inscriptions, and proverbs:

Click here to view the document in its original formatting.

Scisne? Survey

This past week, I created a survey for my Latin I classes to complete to reinforce the verbs scio (I know) and nescio (I don't know). Within the past year, I have also been invested in creating activities for additional opportunities for input other than the usual (e.g. reading stories, listening exercises, TPR, et al.), especially activities that draw upon my students' lives and experiences, encourage convivial interaction between students, and allow for students for learn more about one another. 

So what does the survey look like?

Day 1: I created a Google Form with each question asking "Scisne...?" (Do you know how...?) with different skills. All students had to do was pull out their phones or use the student computer in my room and answer scio or nescio for each question. The skills ranged from building a fire to driving to cooking to dancing to playing an instrument to using different forms of technology to using different forms of social media. 

Day 2: I created a Google Slideshow with the results of the survey from all three of my Latin I classes. We then discussed the results.

One bonus form of input from this: exposure to and repetition of large numbers! When I was studying Latin, I barely learned numbers 1-10, let alone anything above 10, so I'm so proud that my students were able to understand the numbers! Latin numbers also behave a little differently compared English numbers. For example, for 18, 19, 28, 29, 38, 39, etc., Latin prefers to count down, so eighteen is duodeviginti (two-down-from-twenty), nineteen is undeviginti (two-down-from-twenty), and so on. This is challenging for most students (I still struggle with this because I've had to teach myself the numbers - I even keep a print-out of the pages on numbers from Allen & Greenough on my desk at all times!), but most of my students were able to follow along and understand with my guidance.

The data from the survey contained some surprising and not-so-surprising results. For example, most of my students know how to use Snapchat and Instagram, but not Facebook (that's for us old people 👴). Half of my students know how to play an instrument.

This activity also provided ample opportunities for circling and community building. For example, I asked if students knew how to speak another language (they had to decide if that included Latin or not 😉), so I asked around to find out which languages my students can speak. The results were exciting - Amharic, Gujarati, Arabic, Spanish, French! I also circled for other questions, like "What instrument do you know how to play?" and "What do you know how to cook?" 

If you'd like to see the slideshow, I have embedded it below:

Quis nuntium misit ad me? Choose Your Own Adventure

This past week, I created an activity for my Latin I classes with the following scenario: someone has sent you a strange text message, so how will you react?! What unfolds next depends on how students choose to respond (from a set of possible responses) to the mysterious message, for they will receive different follow-up questions. In the end, the students find out who sent the message - with a surprise twist!

The mysterious message: "I found a body." 😱

The format: a text message (question) & the possible responses

Here are some examples of the question and the answers to choose from:

"ego invēni corpus." (I found a body)

• You should send, "Who are you?"
• You should send, "Who are you?" 😡
• You should send, "Who are you?" 😘
• You should ignore the message.

The 'sender' will respond based on the answer.


"vide sub mensa. quid invēnisti?" (See under the table. What did you find?)

• You should send, "I found money."
• You should send, "I found dust."
• You should send, "I found a stylus."
• You should send, "I found a key."

"sume rem! quid est?" (Pick up the object. What is it? [The adventure at this point had led to finding an object in a cabinet.])

• You should send, "The object is a stylus."
• You should send, "The object is money."
• You should send, "The object is blood."
• You should send, "The object is a book."

The response to the question above will determine the final sequence of events. 

Why?

• I love active use of the target language, especially for fun and quirky purposes!
• To expose students to target vocabulary, such as debere "should," mittere "to send," and invenire "to find."
• To expose students to "real-life" applications of the language with questions like "Ubi es?" ("Where are you?"), "Quid invenisti?" ("What did you find?").
• To offer choice to students as they practice reading Latin.

What students do:

• Access the Google Form with the questions.
• Write each question that they encounter and the answer that they choose for every question.

The packet for students to fill in the questions and answers:



How did students react? They loved it and they shared their choices with their friends! It was a fun change of pace.

What would I change for next time?

• Use this activity after students have already acquired the vocabulary, rather than to introduce and reinforce vocabulary. Students said that it would have even more fun if they did not have to refer to the lexical guide I made.
• Use this activity with Latin II to review Latin I vocabulary.

Timed Writes & Student Choice

Timed Writes are a great way for students to produce written output and demonstrate to us teachers and to themselves what they can do with the target language in a quantifiable manner (i.e. the time limit of the write itself and the word count that they produce). Like all forms of output, students will need to have acquired sufficient input. For this reason, I use Timed Writes as the culminating piece of units, which are either short stories or cultural topics. Normally Timed Writes take on two forms in my classes: retelling stories we have read in their own words OR writing original stories based on a given prompt. This past month I decided to mix things up.

A few weeks ago, my Latin I students completed their second Timed Write to close our unit on the basics of ancient Rome (daily life and the topography and architecture of the city). We toured the important sights like the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and the Circus Maximus; we explored how the ancient Romans met their basic needs like food, water, and - everyone's favorite - going to the bathroom; and we discussed the differences between the lives of most Romans and of the wealthy. In many Latin classes, including my own, this usually includes the differences between the two main types of Roman housing, insulae (apartment buildings) and domus (houses). We watched Magister Craft's amazing videos on both the insula and the domus, read the scripts of both videos in Latin, and looked at the remains of such structures. 

I initially planned to conclude this unit with a Timed Write that would require that students compare and contrast insulae and domus in Latin. Inspired by my Gifted endorsement course, I decided to give my students more options - especially those that would challenge my students to think beyond simply comparing and contrasting. 

This is how the week went:

Monday: I put students into groups to generate similarities and differences between insulae and domus in English and, if they so desired, in Latin. Then each group shared their lists and as a class we came up with how to word the lists in Latin, which I typed and projected simultaneously for them to copy down.

Tuesday: I presented the Timed Write prompts and students had time to choose their prompt and generate a list of Latin words/phrases that they would need to answer their prompt.

These were the prompts:

1.  Create your own Roman family and describe their living situation. What are their names and how are the family members related to one another? Do they live in an insula or in a domus? Where do they sleep? Where do they get their food from and where do they eat it? Where do they go to the bathroom? 
2. Archaeologists in Pompeii have discovered the ruins of a building and they believe that it is either an insula or a domus. You have looked over the floor plan and you know what it is, but you have to convince the archaeologists. Describe what the building is and support your argument based on what you know about Roman housing. If you argue that the building is a domus, why? Why is the building not an insula? If you argue that the building is an insula, why? Why is the building not a domus?
3. Compare and contrast living in the insula and living in the domus. How are the insula and the domus similar? In what ways are they different? Consider the following: rooms/size, food/eating, bathrooms. Make sure that your descriptions of the domus and the insula are thorough (describe all the rooms of the domus).

Wednesday - break for Halloween!

Thursday: Each student received an Essential Words worksheet, where they placed necessary Latin words in the given boxes. Students were allowed to use these worksheets during the Timed Write, provided they followed the instructions and completed them appropriately. If students had time, they wrote rough drafts of the Timed Writes and could get feedback from me.

A shorter version of the Essential Words worksheet

Friday: Day of the Timed Write! Students had 8 minutes to answer their chosen prompt in their own words in Latin in as many words as possible. 

Results: I was pleasantly surprised by the Timed Write results! The time that I allotted to students to prepare themselves was worth it. As I said above, this was only the second Timed Write that they have ever produced, so they are still learning how Timed Writes work. The Timed Writes demonstrated thought and care and were more grammatically accurate than I had expected. I was also surprised at the prompts that students chose. Since we had spent a considerable amount of time to comparing and contrasting insulae and domus, I expected most students to select the third prompt. That was not the case. The first and second prompts were more popular, the former in particular. 

Several students wrote more than 100 words. I expect a pace of about 10 words per minute for Timed Writes, but for the first semester of Latin I, I expect a more flexible range of 5-10 words per minute. My word count expectations are also lower for Free Writes because they are open-ended. The highest word count was 180 words, so that comes down to 22.5 words per minute - in less than three months of Latin! This student remarked that his hand started cramping - talk about dedication! 

After the Timed Write, I asked that students answer the following reflection questions:

1. How many words did you write?
2. What did you do well in this Timed Write?
3. With what did you struggle in this Timed Write?
4. How did your preparations help you? What did you do specifically? 
5. How would you like to improve for your next Timed Write?

Some responses reflect the students' comfort with the target language to such a degree that they focus less on the daunting task of writing in the target language and instead have ideas for improvement. Here are some of my favorites:

• "[I would like to] use/know connecting/transitional phrases/words."
• "[I would like to explicitly] learn past and present tenses."
• "I would like to write using more varieties of sentences."

Since Timed Writes are a tangible reminder to students of their proficiency and growth in the target language, I want students to take pride in their Timed Writes and find them compelling to write and read again at a later date. Hereafter I plan to continue to offer more choices for Timed Writes. 

Latin 1 First Story of the Year

Many teachers who are new to CI, especially Latin teachers, ask the question, "How do you start level one?" The traditional way of teaching Latin typically jumps right into conjugating verbs. That's at least how my first few days of Latin went (to be fair, it was also at the college level). Our modern world language colleagues at least can start the year with the old standbys of greetings and simple expressions for interpersonal communication (e.g. talking about family, interests, and likes/dislikes). 

In my Latin 1 class, we do all of these (minus conjugating verbs), but I also like to get my students moving and engaging with one another via Total Physical Response (TPR). With TPR, I deliver simple messages in Latin to my students to perform simple actions with high-frequency verbs. To make it more engaging, we use stuffed animals.

"I ad ianuam!" "Go to the door!"

"Cape animal ex sacco!" "Take an animal out of the bag!"

"Fer leonem ad Amandam!" "Bring the animal to Amanda!"

"Marcus dat felem Liviae!" "Marcus gives the cat to Livia!"

All of this involves me narrating and ordering various actions while pausing to point at the words on the board with their accompanying English meaning.

This year, inspired by my colleagues Rachel Ash, Miriam Patrick, and Keith Toda, I decided to make my own story using the vocabulary words from our TPR activities. This way, my students can see and hear (as we read aloud the story) these high-frequency words, get as much exposure to and repetition of said words, and acquire words that will serve them for as long as they study Latin.

The story I wrote, titled Ubi est telephonum Mirandae? (Where Is Miranda's Phone?), was a surprise hit with my students! The story draws not only from our TPR word base, but also from our class cell phone procedure and rejoinders. I used Latin names (Miranda and Iulius - Julius in English) that are familiar in English to help my students see that many of us have Latin names and that the Latin-speaking past is not so distant. Here is what it looks like:

Hodie puella (girl) est in Lilburn. Nomen ei est Miranda. Miranda est discipula. Miranda intrat conclave (classroom). Miranda videt in tabulā: “Ubi sunt telephona?”

Ubi est telephonum Mirandae? Scilicet est in sacculō! Miranda videt in sacculō. Telephonum non est in sacculō! Miranda non habet telephonum! Ubi est telephonum Mirandae?! Miranda vult telephonum!

Miranda it ad armarium. Telephonum non est in armariō. Miranda it ad excipulum. Telephonum non est in excipulō. Miranda it ad mensam. Telephonum non est in mensā. Ubi est telephonum Mirandae? Miranda non habet telephonum. Miranda vult telephonum!

Miranda it ad ianuam. Iulius intrat conclave. Miranda inquit (said), “Ubi est meum (my) telephonum?”

Iulius inquit, “Visne telephonum? Da mihi (to me) stylum.” Miranda capit stylum. Miranda fert stylum. Miranda dat stylum Iuliō. Iulius habet stylum.

Iulius inquit, “Da mihi chartam.” Miranda capit chartam. Miranda fert chartam. Miranda dat chartam Iuliō. Iulius habet chartam.

Iulius scribit in chartā, “Te amo (I love you).” Iulius dat chartam Mirandae. Miranda capit chartam.

Miranda inquit, “Fufae!” Miranda ponit (puts) chartam in sacculum. Miranda videt aliquid (something) in sacculō sub (under) libellō. Miranda videt telephonum! Euge! Miranda habet telephonum!

Why was this simple story such a hit? The reference to our cell phone procedure was a nice inside joke (and a great way for me to remind my classes of my policy 😈). My students ate up the almost love story. Some felt bad for Iulius and his failed attempt to woo Miranda. Some commended him for his audacity. Some found his flirtations creepy. Some students made predictions about the location of Miranda's phone (one was correct!). One class wanted to know more about Miranda and Iulius' relationship and wondered if they had a past, which I will keep in mind in case I decide to write a continuation of this story.

Before I wrote this story, I felt overwhelmed at the thought of writing a narrative that both engaged my students and gave them sufficient exposure to and repetition of high-frequency words in Latin. I'm sure many new CI teachers share the same apprehension. After all, when I was a student - and later a teacher - in traditional Latin programs, I relied on textbook exercises (however absurd they may be - I'm looking at you, Dominus iacet in via!) and on adapted readings from classical literature for practice. I now plan to write more stories for my classes in the future. I can only hope that they will be just as fabulous.