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So, where have I been? Well, last week I was at a wonderful AP Latin workshop at TCU (thank you, Jo Green!). The focus was Vergil; it was a thorough workshop. We were trained in chunking, in grading translations, in grading essays, in writing multiple choice questions, etc.
This has given me so much food for thought, and it also jumpstarted me into beginning preparations for next year.
Your first year teaching anywhere is survival. That's my experience, and I'm sticking by it. The years that follow you make plans to improve the quality of the teaching experience. I have written elsewhere about my five year plans--giving myself 5 years to incorporate more oral Latin, for instance, instead of trying to do it all in one year (and failing). And I reserve the right to revise my 5 year plans. Perhaps practical planning is the better term.
If you ever let your first year (or your student teaching experience) determine your future, you're a fool. That would be like letting your first year playing soccer determine what kind of soccer player you'll end up being in 10 years.
I use soccer analogies a lot because I play on a women's over 30 team. And, frankly, I sucked the first year or two that I played. My now husband got me to play coed soccer with him and the only thing I could say was that I ran hard. I knew I was improving when the sweeper, an old Brit named Frank who coaches girls teams, started taking time to actually coach me from behind. And I'm still not finished improving. I'm 42 and I hope to be better at 45 than I am now. I've just joined my son's karate class so if nothing else I'm expecting my kicking to improve and thus help my shooting. But I had a really nice give and go last Sunday, and almost had an assist.
But I digress.
Hopefully, you see my point. Unfortunately most of us were A students and think that life should be as controllable as being in school. And it's not. I've often wondered if having kids before coming back to teaching has made me a better teacher. I understand how to go with the flow, to cut myself slack, and to use the circular file from time to time. Not every damn thing needs to be graded.
And, I've learned the value of planning ahead. Teachers don't sit on their asses in the summer. If we are any good, we go to workshops, read, think--lots of thinking, and then do whatever you can do to make the next year easier.
So, what am I doing? Well, I thought about what would be the hardest thing about next year, and I decided everything. HA. No, actually, I thought it would be the amount of grading I'd have to do for my Latin classes since I would have MORE classes and MORE students. And then I thought, well, what kept me from grading last year? And I realized it was all the prep work.
SO, what can I do to lower some of that? PREP NOW. After all, I'll have a similar situation: a split-level class of Latin 2, 3, and perhaps a Latin 4. And while I do have things made, now, for Latin 3 (with Ecce), but Latin 2 will be Unit 3 of CLC which I haven't taught from before.
The most time consuming thing was always creating the QUIA stuff and vocab quizzes. So, I thought, let's start there. I have thus taken Unit 3 and read each stage multiple times in order to find all the vocabulary in context. I underlined them in my book, then went back and typed them up in a table. In the left column was the master vocab, on the right were sentences from the text. I make a point of including macrons, reading everything outloud to myself to fix any words unknown to me in my mind (and by saying it right thus fixing the macrons in my mind). From there, I can copy and paste the sentences, macrons and all, directly into QUIA for practice quizzes. You can see what I've done with stage 21 here:
http://www.quia.com/pages/drippinglatin2.html
I still need basic flashcard drills, but that's EASY to make and I may have an aide or two this coming year and this will be something they can do.
I don't have everything typed up yet; it just depends when I'm allowed to sit down and actually work on it. But all the words have been located in the stories.
I've also been thinking about how to make the split-level class more productive. It occurred to me that I could rarely get students to do flashcard drills well on their own--you know, one part of the class work independently while I work with the other side of the class. Part of the problem is that I've always made the flashcards with ME in mind--what *I* needed. Therefore, they only had Latin on the front and nothing on the back.
I've already started making new large flashcards for group use, but this time I'm making detailed backs. I have this idea about having a new group leader each day in charge of doing the cards. That person would need to feel like an expert, and with my cards he/she will feel like the expert. The top line has the word itself with the meaning. I've underlined the genitive ending of the nouns and written the declension number above. Below the meaning, I have sentences in Latin with the word in context, followed by a translation, with the word in question underlined. The bottom right has the word declined in full. Verbs get a similar treatment, except with a short synopsis of the indicative active (even though they haven't gotten future and future perfect yet).
I'm thinking there may be a variety of activities that the group could do with these, including modeling what all they could include on their own index cards.
Vocabulary is so critical for AP. Going through Unit 3 like I did was not only good for familiarizing me with the text, since I've never taught from it, but also for seeing just how much Vergilian vocabulary is used in CLC. It is this very group of Latin 2 students who may be in my first AP class, so I want to make sure that they won't be inadvertently penalized for being stuck in a split-level class. There may not be enough of them continuing on to Latin 3 and AP to make a class on their own...not sure what I'll do then, but perhaps if I've trained them to be VERY productive on their own, it will eventually be possible to do AP in a split level class. I'm also going to look into having a Latin 3 pre-AP designation for some students and giving them tests that also include some AP style stuff.
You should see me, carrying around my index cards in a plastic sack with a box of colored markers (for the front of the cards) and a pencil for doing all the detail work on the back. A little here, a little there, and it's getting done.
So, what are you doing with YOUR summer vacation???
This has given me so much food for thought, and it also jumpstarted me into beginning preparations for next year.
Your first year teaching anywhere is survival. That's my experience, and I'm sticking by it. The years that follow you make plans to improve the quality of the teaching experience. I have written elsewhere about my five year plans--giving myself 5 years to incorporate more oral Latin, for instance, instead of trying to do it all in one year (and failing). And I reserve the right to revise my 5 year plans. Perhaps practical planning is the better term.
If you ever let your first year (or your student teaching experience) determine your future, you're a fool. That would be like letting your first year playing soccer determine what kind of soccer player you'll end up being in 10 years.
I use soccer analogies a lot because I play on a women's over 30 team. And, frankly, I sucked the first year or two that I played. My now husband got me to play coed soccer with him and the only thing I could say was that I ran hard. I knew I was improving when the sweeper, an old Brit named Frank who coaches girls teams, started taking time to actually coach me from behind. And I'm still not finished improving. I'm 42 and I hope to be better at 45 than I am now. I've just joined my son's karate class so if nothing else I'm expecting my kicking to improve and thus help my shooting. But I had a really nice give and go last Sunday, and almost had an assist.
But I digress.
Hopefully, you see my point. Unfortunately most of us were A students and think that life should be as controllable as being in school. And it's not. I've often wondered if having kids before coming back to teaching has made me a better teacher. I understand how to go with the flow, to cut myself slack, and to use the circular file from time to time. Not every damn thing needs to be graded.
And, I've learned the value of planning ahead. Teachers don't sit on their asses in the summer. If we are any good, we go to workshops, read, think--lots of thinking, and then do whatever you can do to make the next year easier.
So, what am I doing? Well, I thought about what would be the hardest thing about next year, and I decided everything. HA. No, actually, I thought it would be the amount of grading I'd have to do for my Latin classes since I would have MORE classes and MORE students. And then I thought, well, what kept me from grading last year? And I realized it was all the prep work.
SO, what can I do to lower some of that? PREP NOW. After all, I'll have a similar situation: a split-level class of Latin 2, 3, and perhaps a Latin 4. And while I do have things made, now, for Latin 3 (with Ecce), but Latin 2 will be Unit 3 of CLC which I haven't taught from before.
The most time consuming thing was always creating the QUIA stuff and vocab quizzes. So, I thought, let's start there. I have thus taken Unit 3 and read each stage multiple times in order to find all the vocabulary in context. I underlined them in my book, then went back and typed them up in a table. In the left column was the master vocab, on the right were sentences from the text. I make a point of including macrons, reading everything outloud to myself to fix any words unknown to me in my mind (and by saying it right thus fixing the macrons in my mind). From there, I can copy and paste the sentences, macrons and all, directly into QUIA for practice quizzes. You can see what I've done with stage 21 here:
http://www.quia.com/pages/drippinglatin2.html
I still need basic flashcard drills, but that's EASY to make and I may have an aide or two this coming year and this will be something they can do.
I don't have everything typed up yet; it just depends when I'm allowed to sit down and actually work on it. But all the words have been located in the stories.
I've also been thinking about how to make the split-level class more productive. It occurred to me that I could rarely get students to do flashcard drills well on their own--you know, one part of the class work independently while I work with the other side of the class. Part of the problem is that I've always made the flashcards with ME in mind--what *I* needed. Therefore, they only had Latin on the front and nothing on the back.
I've already started making new large flashcards for group use, but this time I'm making detailed backs. I have this idea about having a new group leader each day in charge of doing the cards. That person would need to feel like an expert, and with my cards he/she will feel like the expert. The top line has the word itself with the meaning. I've underlined the genitive ending of the nouns and written the declension number above. Below the meaning, I have sentences in Latin with the word in context, followed by a translation, with the word in question underlined. The bottom right has the word declined in full. Verbs get a similar treatment, except with a short synopsis of the indicative active (even though they haven't gotten future and future perfect yet).
I'm thinking there may be a variety of activities that the group could do with these, including modeling what all they could include on their own index cards.
Vocabulary is so critical for AP. Going through Unit 3 like I did was not only good for familiarizing me with the text, since I've never taught from it, but also for seeing just how much Vergilian vocabulary is used in CLC. It is this very group of Latin 2 students who may be in my first AP class, so I want to make sure that they won't be inadvertently penalized for being stuck in a split-level class. There may not be enough of them continuing on to Latin 3 and AP to make a class on their own...not sure what I'll do then, but perhaps if I've trained them to be VERY productive on their own, it will eventually be possible to do AP in a split level class. I'm also going to look into having a Latin 3 pre-AP designation for some students and giving them tests that also include some AP style stuff.
You should see me, carrying around my index cards in a plastic sack with a box of colored markers (for the front of the cards) and a pencil for doing all the detail work on the back. A little here, a little there, and it's getting done.
So, what are you doing with YOUR summer vacation???
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