![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Well, I'm late getting started and then had to take a day off in the middle for a family illness, but I've started my Vergil unit. This is where I take my philosophy--that we learn Latin to read real Latin--and put it in the classroom. I remember looking at my students last year, the kids who were in many ways the bottom of the barrel, and thinking they'd never get far enough to read real Latin. Well, some of them. And others, well, I didn't think they'd get the opportunity to experience in the right way.
Day 1 was my powerpoint introducing them to Vergil and Augustus, to mythology and propaganda (they had propaganda back then, miss? they had politics?) The end of the powerpoint has a bunch of pictures of snakes and sea serpents to illustrate the vocabulary, as well as islands, sea shores, and ocean. The following day was snake day, where I bring in rubber snakes and we learn snake body parts: iuba pectus tergum collum cervix spira nodus volumen orb lingua, followed by: unda, pelagus, alta, fluctus, pontus. So if you can imagine, each student has one of my son's rubber snakes plus a construction paper wave of water and I have a huge puppet cobra. I try to make it fun, but there's always a few sour pusses in the class that just sit there staring into space. Oh well.
Other things that we are doing include memorizing two line (line and a half): arma virumque canO and quidquid id est, timeO DanaOs et dOna ferentIs. We practice saying these in class repeatedly and at the door I had a white board (and will again today) which has the question (which I say outloud): quid canis? The answer is there for them to repeat: arma virumque cano. Then, quis est vir? AenEAs est vir! They groan after saying these and enter the room. ha. But it reviews forms (canO > canis) and has them thinking about the meaning of the phrase.
Today... today is giving the students a packet from the Legamus reader on the sea serpent scene. Oh, yeah, I guess I haven't explained that very well. (Some of these entries are well thought out, others ramble, as you readers know.) We're doing the scene from book 2 where the sea serpents attack and kill Laocoon and his sons. It's a good scene, worthy of modern sci-fi, and one of the things we will be doing is writing a film scenario.
Yeah, this will be really eating into what we do with the textbook and I'll be skipping stories right and left as well as truncating vocab quizzes and such, but they'll remember this. They won't care about Dumnorix, Bellimicus, and Cogidubnus. They won't remember. Maybe, just maybe they'll remember Vergil.
Then again, maybe I'm just full of it. I don't really think I have students anymore who just want to learn. I've had a few, I've had some students who really wanted to learn Latin and liked each new grammar undertaken. Now there are days when I wonder whether they aren't just going along because they like me. That's something. I mean, I had a former student come back yesterday, one who was sweet and smart but apathetic. But I was glad to see her, and her coming back told me I was doing something right.
Anyway. I'll keep posting about this Vergil project after Christmas. I'm pleased about how things are going so far. But we're far from done. We're far from done....
Day 1 was my powerpoint introducing them to Vergil and Augustus, to mythology and propaganda (they had propaganda back then, miss? they had politics?) The end of the powerpoint has a bunch of pictures of snakes and sea serpents to illustrate the vocabulary, as well as islands, sea shores, and ocean. The following day was snake day, where I bring in rubber snakes and we learn snake body parts: iuba pectus tergum collum cervix spira nodus volumen orb lingua, followed by: unda, pelagus, alta, fluctus, pontus. So if you can imagine, each student has one of my son's rubber snakes plus a construction paper wave of water and I have a huge puppet cobra. I try to make it fun, but there's always a few sour pusses in the class that just sit there staring into space. Oh well.
Other things that we are doing include memorizing two line (line and a half): arma virumque canO and quidquid id est, timeO DanaOs et dOna ferentIs. We practice saying these in class repeatedly and at the door I had a white board (and will again today) which has the question (which I say outloud): quid canis? The answer is there for them to repeat: arma virumque cano. Then, quis est vir? AenEAs est vir! They groan after saying these and enter the room. ha. But it reviews forms (canO > canis) and has them thinking about the meaning of the phrase.
Today... today is giving the students a packet from the Legamus reader on the sea serpent scene. Oh, yeah, I guess I haven't explained that very well. (Some of these entries are well thought out, others ramble, as you readers know.) We're doing the scene from book 2 where the sea serpents attack and kill Laocoon and his sons. It's a good scene, worthy of modern sci-fi, and one of the things we will be doing is writing a film scenario.
Yeah, this will be really eating into what we do with the textbook and I'll be skipping stories right and left as well as truncating vocab quizzes and such, but they'll remember this. They won't care about Dumnorix, Bellimicus, and Cogidubnus. They won't remember. Maybe, just maybe they'll remember Vergil.
Then again, maybe I'm just full of it. I don't really think I have students anymore who just want to learn. I've had a few, I've had some students who really wanted to learn Latin and liked each new grammar undertaken. Now there are days when I wonder whether they aren't just going along because they like me. That's something. I mean, I had a former student come back yesterday, one who was sweet and smart but apathetic. But I was glad to see her, and her coming back told me I was doing something right.
Anyway. I'll keep posting about this Vergil project after Christmas. I'm pleased about how things are going so far. But we're far from done. We're far from done....
Praise & Encouragement
Date: 2005-12-16 10:04 pm (UTC)This is the third time I've responded to your blog. I am so grateful to have discovered you. And that you take your valuable time to blog about teaching Latin is such a gift to innumerable unknown souls. (Between you and Stephanie Pope, I have managed to teach without embarassment.) You have passion and you have talent. That is why your students study for you. They understand that they can change for the better if they follow your lead. Not only is the text authentic--so are you!
I hope that your Disney award submission captures the full range of your innovative ideas. My best wishes, Julie Keesling Norfolk, VA
Re: Praise & Encouragement
From: