I want to be better/doing projects

You know, I'm good at some things, I know I am.  I've had students say they've learned more from me this year in Latin than in the previous two years combined.  I've had English students say they've learned more about writing from me (a real joke in some ways) than in previous years....

Where am I going with this... (too tired to think straight).

I'm thinking about the projects we do in English, and my LACK of doing projects in Latin.  Frankly, they scare me.  I don't even like doing them in English.  There's so much involved, the problem of students not doing them, etc etc.

Each year I tell myself that I'm truly going to do projects in Latin, then I never do them.  I'm usually rushing to finish the stage, racing to the next thing, trying to catch up.

I'm basically finishing Latin 1 this year in Stage 18.  Ok, I'll probably touch on Stage 19 and 20  and learn from my pacing.  

Projects...  I'll tell you what I hate.  Maybe I could figure out the whole project thing if I told you what I hate.  I absolutely HATE big projects that take up space--posters, models, etc.   I hate projects that take days to grade in class. I hate projects that take days of my own time to grade which I don't have.

Gee, nothing left.

And there are good projects out there, I know....  

But then I think about this English project we're doing right now....  it's a neat project (too long to explain) and while some students are really *into* it, there are some that are refusing to do it.  AND because there are grades on each step of the project, it's becoming a really large part of their grade.

What's the point of that?  I have students right now that are doing absolutely NOTHING, NOTHING at all, except disrupt the English class because they feel there's nothing left to do to improve their grades.

I don't want that in Latin.

I want JCL to be a part of my program next year.  I want to find a way to tie in projects early in the year with JCL, but not exactly.  Oh, I'm just rambling and avoiding writing a quiz.

I can say this: there are some really creative assignments out there, some things I seem my son doing for his class, things that I could do, but I somehow fail to do.  Why?  I suppose it's the aspect of not being able to deal with grading all the assignments, or knowing too many don't get done....whatever.  Must go.

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I came back.

You know, I know one of the problems: I don't hold to a syllabus hard and fast.  I know this is one of my problems, but I figure if I don't take time to get the basics firmly set correctly in their wee little brains in Latin, they will forever be lost.  For instance, it's not too bad skipping around the latter chapters of Unit 2 because so much can be explained in terms of what was learned before. Hic, Haec, Hoc, for instance, isn't that big a deal.

Composition projects, that's what I want. Something that requires them to actually WRITE in Latin.  I need to do the family trees, among other things, and creating Latin picture books, etc.....