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Last year my split level class worked fairly well. My Latin 3's were pretty independent; my Latin 2's more needy but I thought I got them working through things ok.
This year my new Latin 2's--all of 9 of them--have turned into real whiners. 3 of them especially. In fairness, they don't get stuff. They don't get stuff because they don't want to get stuff. They say they do, but when you say things like, "in order to complete the following is, ea, id chart, you might want to sing your noun-ending song and jot down those endings." But heaven help them do any work. Did anyone jot down those endings? NO. So, eventually we sing the song together, they give me the endings, I write them on the board, and then we look at the chart I made for the warm-up with the missing blanks. Hand holding yet again.
You'd think I had suddenly written Greek on the board.
Then we move on to go over some PTL's on present participles (we're TRYING to finish stage 20). You'd think we'd never mentioned them, that there wasn't a participle in the chapter, that we hadn't read stories that incorporated participles.
I'm drawing arches to show the nesting aspect of participles. "I don't get it." "What don't you get?" "Any of it. The endings. Why are they 3rd declension?" "They just are; those are the endings present participles use. Remember? It's like the adjective ingens." I decline ingens on the board to show them. You'd think ingens had never been in the book. You'd think we hadn't already spent time declining participles with a noun they modify.
Then we talked of case, number, and gender. It was as if I'd never discussed it before. Hello? Like I didn't with adjectives? Like I didn't with relative pronouns? OHMIGOSH.
Then I realize my only Latin 4 really doesn't have that great a grasp on grammar but just likes Latin.
I'm starting to realize a lot of things--many of which make me feel like a failure, but I know that's just part of being sensitive to students' needs and not indifferent to them.
First and foremost: having my Latin 1's write stories in Latin gives them what the more advanced students never had--composition work. It's not drill and kill work, but it does the same thing AND HAS ITS OWN INTRINSIC INTEREST because the students are making up the stories. I glanced at the next batch I've had them write today and I'm greatly amused already. I can't wait until Weds when we really go over them.
The thing is, THIS will make them pay closer attention to details than my assigning 3 times the assignments that are just transformation of forms with no intrinsic value. So that's the first thing.
Second: I may have to do some of the sort of detail work I hate--parsing stuff--because that's what the students will need to focus on details and put it together. In the AP workshop I attended this summer it was recommended that students write out/type out the Latin text with large spacing in between to provide room for grammar ID's, vocab, plus a running translation.
The thing is, this goes against everything I feel deep down inside about learning to read Latin. Maybe my problem is that what I want to see students achieve I can't just leap to. I didn't think I was leaping to it; I thought I was teaching those reading skills all along with my metaphrasing and other things. BUt I guess those skills really only work if the students are going home every night AND REREADING.
I looked at the struggling Latin 2's and told them to stop being angry with me. They don't come in for help during tutorials in the morning, they don't email me for help either. Then I asked whether they ever bothered to REREAD a story, especially one that we just read together in class? Dead silence.
OF COURSE IT'S DEAD SILENCE! They wouldn't be having problems if they were rereading stories.
Another thing I'm having my Latin 1's do: read/translate a story on their own in each stage. Am I grading their translations? I didn't this last time. What they need is IMMEDIATE feedback--so I gave them a quiz over the story. 5 questions and you can use your translation but not your book. If they translated it correctly for the most part, they could pass the quiz fine.
And I keep telling them, hammering it home as hard as I can: REREAD the stories. The more you reread the stories, the more you will fix the Latin in your head and the EASIER it is to face reading a new story on your own.
I just have to keep this up. Reading a WHOLE story on their own--especially when the stories get longer. I MUST keep doing this.
My pace is better in Latin 1 this year, I think. I'm behind in Latin 2 and 3. I know I am. Oh, hell, I'm probably behind in Latin 1 too, but it just doesn't feel like I've wasted time (like in past years when I've foolishly taken time out to make signet rings and such).
Maybe the truth is that I'm not that great of a high school Latin teacher. Maybe I'm just meant to be a middle school teacher. Well... I don't really believe it. I do think I'm good with Latin 1 and that each year I get better at it. But I'm waiting to see a Latin 2 class that pays off yet. And at this rate, will I have the stamina to keep going at my current school? This year is killing me. Last year was killing me.
Well, I shouldn't have spent so much time writing this, but when things go poorly it is frustrating. It is easy to blame the kids, but I always look in the mirror too. Some days I just don't like what I see. I guess the worst thing is that I'd like time to THINK about it, but outside of venting, that's about it. No time for more.
This year my new Latin 2's--all of 9 of them--have turned into real whiners. 3 of them especially. In fairness, they don't get stuff. They don't get stuff because they don't want to get stuff. They say they do, but when you say things like, "in order to complete the following is, ea, id chart, you might want to sing your noun-ending song and jot down those endings." But heaven help them do any work. Did anyone jot down those endings? NO. So, eventually we sing the song together, they give me the endings, I write them on the board, and then we look at the chart I made for the warm-up with the missing blanks. Hand holding yet again.
You'd think I had suddenly written Greek on the board.
Then we move on to go over some PTL's on present participles (we're TRYING to finish stage 20). You'd think we'd never mentioned them, that there wasn't a participle in the chapter, that we hadn't read stories that incorporated participles.
I'm drawing arches to show the nesting aspect of participles. "I don't get it." "What don't you get?" "Any of it. The endings. Why are they 3rd declension?" "They just are; those are the endings present participles use. Remember? It's like the adjective ingens." I decline ingens on the board to show them. You'd think ingens had never been in the book. You'd think we hadn't already spent time declining participles with a noun they modify.
Then we talked of case, number, and gender. It was as if I'd never discussed it before. Hello? Like I didn't with adjectives? Like I didn't with relative pronouns? OHMIGOSH.
Then I realize my only Latin 4 really doesn't have that great a grasp on grammar but just likes Latin.
I'm starting to realize a lot of things--many of which make me feel like a failure, but I know that's just part of being sensitive to students' needs and not indifferent to them.
First and foremost: having my Latin 1's write stories in Latin gives them what the more advanced students never had--composition work. It's not drill and kill work, but it does the same thing AND HAS ITS OWN INTRINSIC INTEREST because the students are making up the stories. I glanced at the next batch I've had them write today and I'm greatly amused already. I can't wait until Weds when we really go over them.
The thing is, THIS will make them pay closer attention to details than my assigning 3 times the assignments that are just transformation of forms with no intrinsic value. So that's the first thing.
Second: I may have to do some of the sort of detail work I hate--parsing stuff--because that's what the students will need to focus on details and put it together. In the AP workshop I attended this summer it was recommended that students write out/type out the Latin text with large spacing in between to provide room for grammar ID's, vocab, plus a running translation.
The thing is, this goes against everything I feel deep down inside about learning to read Latin. Maybe my problem is that what I want to see students achieve I can't just leap to. I didn't think I was leaping to it; I thought I was teaching those reading skills all along with my metaphrasing and other things. BUt I guess those skills really only work if the students are going home every night AND REREADING.
I looked at the struggling Latin 2's and told them to stop being angry with me. They don't come in for help during tutorials in the morning, they don't email me for help either. Then I asked whether they ever bothered to REREAD a story, especially one that we just read together in class? Dead silence.
OF COURSE IT'S DEAD SILENCE! They wouldn't be having problems if they were rereading stories.
Another thing I'm having my Latin 1's do: read/translate a story on their own in each stage. Am I grading their translations? I didn't this last time. What they need is IMMEDIATE feedback--so I gave them a quiz over the story. 5 questions and you can use your translation but not your book. If they translated it correctly for the most part, they could pass the quiz fine.
And I keep telling them, hammering it home as hard as I can: REREAD the stories. The more you reread the stories, the more you will fix the Latin in your head and the EASIER it is to face reading a new story on your own.
I just have to keep this up. Reading a WHOLE story on their own--especially when the stories get longer. I MUST keep doing this.
My pace is better in Latin 1 this year, I think. I'm behind in Latin 2 and 3. I know I am. Oh, hell, I'm probably behind in Latin 1 too, but it just doesn't feel like I've wasted time (like in past years when I've foolishly taken time out to make signet rings and such).
Maybe the truth is that I'm not that great of a high school Latin teacher. Maybe I'm just meant to be a middle school teacher. Well... I don't really believe it. I do think I'm good with Latin 1 and that each year I get better at it. But I'm waiting to see a Latin 2 class that pays off yet. And at this rate, will I have the stamina to keep going at my current school? This year is killing me. Last year was killing me.
Well, I shouldn't have spent so much time writing this, but when things go poorly it is frustrating. It is easy to blame the kids, but I always look in the mirror too. Some days I just don't like what I see. I guess the worst thing is that I'd like time to THINK about it, but outside of venting, that's about it. No time for more.
Latin II
Date: 2007-10-16 09:44 pm (UTC)Re: Latin II
Date: 2007-10-17 12:47 am (UTC)My Latin 4 wrote out a paragraph from the last story in Ecce II (yeah, well, we're about to get into the Ecce III book), skipping three lines, leaving space to note root meanings and above that case/tense and to write a running translation below.
SHE LIKED THIS. It helped her a lot. It helped her focus; and then I went over it with her during the last 10 minutes of class today while the 3's were working on stuff and the 2's were working on stuff in the hall. I could immediately see what her thinking was and where she went wrong.
So, this is what we're going to do. Why the heck not? We're going to start slowly, now that I know what she really needs to focus on the details, and I'm going to have her go through the stories and parse them out, as was recommended for AP Latin.
BUT THEN I'm going to get her away from her parsed stories and just looking at clean passages, I'm thinking. Doing both. A slow read and a quick one.
And as for the Latin 2's and 3's, well, 2's have a test on Thursday over CLC 19-20 and I've done all the quia reviews I can think of. I don't like any of the stories available for the sight passage on the test (hey, it should be covering participles, but there's not one in sight!), so I'm going to write one. I have to locate my sense of humor first. And the 3's, well, I'm like you: I like my quizzes and if the kids do the quia reviews carefully, they can do well on the quizzes. But there are those who blow it off.
Latin 3's get a test through stage 41 (I know, I should wait until 42, but I just need to give them a test) next week. They don't know it yet.
And you know what? Honestly, you learn more as a teacher from the kids who don't get it than the kids who do. Why don't these girls get case, number and gender? *I* must have rushed teaching it, or thought it too damned obvious. And...not enough meaningful composition work.
I'm telling you, my Latin 1's are ENJOYING writing stories. I can't wait to go through them tomorrow--we're doing peer editing. THEN I'm going to have them type them up for the equivalent of a quiz grade! End result: a NICE product to put in portfolios or on walls or whatever. Maybe I can make a newsletter with them! I dunno.
The thing is, they are picking up vocab and nuances of the language BECAUSE THEY WANT TO write a story!
So, think how much sooner they will understand about noun-adjective agreement because they really want to stick a 3rd declension adjective with a 2nd declension noun? Because they will WANT to know how it is done, they will TAKE THE TIME to understand it.
I'm jazzed.
I'm hopeful.
Ok, I'm wasting time. Quizzes and tests to write and grade.