New Student Stories and other thoughts on composition

I've just posted more than a dozen new stories from students at http://drippinglatin.livejournal.com. Many are hysterical, focusing on love, fights, and drinking. Some are just simple stories that are decently written. They were written after stage 10, and yes I'm several stages beyond that, but just slow to get them posted.

I have one more I want to post, probably because it amuses me so, but is a bit too far out there to put on my high school site. So I decided to post it here.

Please take it in the humor it was intended.

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Felix et Grumio

Grumio atrium intravit. Felix erat in atrio.

"salve!" clamavit Grumio.

"salve!" respondet Felix.

Grumio et Felix basiant. Felix Grumioni flores dedit. Grumio Felici chocolatum dedit. Felix et Grumio e villa contenderunt.

Felix et Grumio theatrum intraverunt, et sederunt. fabula est "RENT." postquam "RENT" spectaverunt, Grumio clamavit,

"optima erat fabula!"

"maxime! ego fabulam amavi!" respondit Felix.

Grumio et Felix e theatro contenderunt. Grumio ad villam contendit, quod tardus erat.

(Dulcia me fecit.)
****

I have no idea why this student chose RENT. Perhaps I need to see it to understand.

Spring Break is coming to a close, and I'm just now feeling like my old self. Has it been a tough year? Maybe. I know it's been draining. And some years are just like that. But I'm seeing some amazing things with my Latin 1's. And every time I let them run with a little creativity--especially if I indulge their desire to stretch their topics beyond what would be considered proper by some--they rise to the occasion.

It's no secret: students are far more interested in learning something if they can put it to use, if it's something they are invested in.

Sure, I could have more traditional composition exercises, and I don't knock teachers who do that. In fact, I noted on the CLC list today that there was a discussion about composition. The teacher was explaining, basically, that she makes the students parse everything before putting it together.

That works. That works and I'm sure that's the sort of thing I did in school. But, honestly, isn't that tedious? Sure, the brainiacs will leap at the challenge, but what about everyone else?

My goal is to NEVER EVER have a split level class again. Never. If you don't find a way to capture the interest of all the students, or as many as possible, how will you ever have the numbers in your upper level classes?

The stories my students write are hysterical and perhaps even outrageous. Is that bad? I don't know, but they are sure far more interested in getting the forms right TO COMMUNICATE when it's something they want to communicate.

I would love to have a Latin elective one day that is only writing stories, plays, and anything in Latin. Of course, the problem is that this wouldn't fit in the normal course schedule. You couldn't have it count as Latin 3 or 4. Frankly, I could see in having it mixed level--truly a diverse class.

Well, not next year. I wouldn't have the bodies for it. Not yet. I can tell you that I think it would complement, say, a Latin 3 class. Or be something fun after Latin 2 if the student didn't think they were up to a pre-AP course. WHY should everything be about AP after all???

I could see, for instance, working in reading some epigrams or Catullus, etc, or even bits of Plautus and then basing our writing on that.

WHY should we turn away students from more Latin just because they don't want to dive into Cicero or Vergil or master conditional clauses and sequence of tenses??

WHY can't we have more time where students go through a comic book and pick out their favorite comics to translate??

I hate that I can't do the amount of composition that I would like. EVEN IF I assigned it more for homework than classwork, students need peer editing or help from me. They WANT to get their stories right. They WANT to know. There's just not enough time to do that and to cover the curriculum.

That same old story!

thoughts about warm-ups in level 2 and above

I'm working this spring break on a paper for CAMWS. I thought that part of it might be worth posting here. It's about teaching split level classes, and the importance of routines, including warm-ups. This first bit is about what I do with level 1 Latin, but then, what I thought would be useful to post here, is what I do about level 2 and above.

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A typical day in my classroom begins with a warm-up (praeparātiō) that focuses on some aspect of the grammar or morphology. For instance, if in Latin 1 we have just learned datives, I might present students with a list of nouns to metaphrase using the placeholding sentence “Someone verbed something to someone.”:

• servō: Someone verbed something TO THE SLAVE.
• discōs: Someone verbed THE DISCUSES to someone.
• hospitibus: Someone verbed something TO THE GUESTS.
• amīcum: Someone verbed THE FRIEND to someone.
• dominus: THE MASTER verbed something to someone.
• ancillae*: THE SLAVEGIRLS verbed something to someone; Someone verbed something TO THE SLAVEGIRLS.

And I will purposely throw in something that leads to discussion about how to disambiguate identical forms such as ancillae (nominative plural) and ancillae (dative singular) when one is READING Latin. From here, I typically drill vocabulary with large flashcards, stopping to review forms of new words, discuss declensions, and other such topics as necessary.
[snip]

I will still have similar sorts of things on warm-ups, emphasizing how Latin fits together as a language, and not just focusing on new forms in isolation. For instance, when working on participles, I gave them not single words but phrases to metaphrase:

• mīlitēs, ā centuriōnibus iussī,: THE SOLDIERS, ORDERED BY THE CENTURION, verbed something.
• Agricolam castra intrantem: Someone verbed AGRICOLA ENTERING THE CAMP.
• Salvius Agricolam intrantem cōnspicātus: SALVIUS HAVING CAUGHT SIGHT OF AGRICOLA ENTERING verbed something.

This once again reviews not only the morphology, but also the context and phrasing. I spend a fair amount of time discussing how compact Latin is, how sentences in a Latin narrative will develop in a chronological order. That is, in the sentence, mīlitēs, ā centuriōnibus iussī, multa et varia faciēbant, the soldiers don’t begin doing the many different things until after they are ordered to do so. Likewise, in the sentence, subitō Salvius, Agricolam intrantem cōnspicātus, ad eum festīnāvit ut salūtāret, Salvius can’t catch sight of Agricola until Agricola first enters, and he can’t hurry to Agricola until he’s caught sight of Agricola, and he can’t greet Agricola until he’s first hurried over to him.

As Latin becomes more difficult for students at level 2 and 3, it is more important than ever that such warm-ups and reviews take place. Students who have taken Latin in a split level or independent course are often not lacking in their knowledge of morphology, but in their understanding of phrasing and context—in their knowledge of the big picture. Therefore, I try to discuss such aspects of Latin before sending students off to work on their own, before letting the Cambridge Latin Course continue what I start. The continuous, interesting storyline combined with the repetition of new forms in context help to reinforce what I am teaching without my being present 100% of the time.

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I don't know (yet) whether the macrons that were included in the above text will show up on this blog site, but perhaps they will.

Do other people do things like this? I'm not sure. I do know that I had Latin 2 and 3 in independent study. I learned the morphology dutifully but it took years before I could truly see phrasing and think about sentences as a language, not some secret language to decode. Perhaps I would have gotten some of these things from my teacher if I hadn't have taken Latin as independent study. But who can say?