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heh heh heh
One of my former 7th graders is at another school this year. His teacher emailed me earlier today and said, is it true that you don't teach a noun chart?
No, I don't.
First, in CLC Unit 1, you only get Nom Dat Acc anyway. Remember, it's presented by frequency, not the artificial way that traditional grammars are laid out. And besides, what AP Latin exam has ever asked a student to decline a noun? Oh sure, they'll ask the case and perhaps WHY it's in that case (esp if some verb taking a dative is lurking or worse, one that takes an ablative). But you don't decline.
It's artificial. It's devoid of meaning. AND, most importantly, it provides more information than students are using and can assimilate. With my young students, it is a distractor.
I use model sentences. By stage 9 they must master:
ancilla puellae statuam dat.
The slave-girl gives the statue to the girl.
ancillae puellis statuas dant.
The slave-girls give the statues to the girls.
dominus servo anulum dabat.
The master was giving the ring to the slave.
domini servis anulos dabant.
The masters were giving the rings to the slaves.
mater patri infantem dedit.
The mother gave the baby to the father.
matres patribus infantes dederunt.
The mothers gave the babies to the fathers.
With macrons, which isn't a problem if they are saying/hearing the word correctly and clearly.
These line up (hard to see here) with a column of NOMS, DATS, and ACCS. We not only memorize these, we then use them in a variety of ways. Sometimes we sub in new vocabulary. FOr instance, take umbra:
umbra umbrae umbram dat.
umbrae umbris umbras dant.
Yeah, a ghost giving a ghost to the ghost is dumb, but it's in context. Or we might just do one word:
mater patri canem dedit.
matres patribus canes dederunt.
And they remember the order of the cases because I teach them "Never (nom) Date (dative) a (accusative) Verb." Ok, some of them think of it as "Never Date a Virgin" but I say verb.
By stage 17 in 8th grade, they must add these phrases:
in villa feminae
in the house of the woman
in villis feminarum
in the houses of the women
in horto amici
in the garden of the friend
in hortis amicorum
in the gardens of the friends
in nave senis
on the ship of the old man
in navibus senum
on the ships of the old men
Of course, I need to take a closer look at the new editions of our textbook which the state legislature finally said they'd pay for. Because, as you may have noticed, I haven't mentioned neuters. CLC does sneak them in and I do talk about them, but they aren't represented here. That's because in Units 1 and 2 they aren't taught formally. Ok, they weren't taught formally, but I think they are now. So I need to make some changes.
Some of you no doubt are still shaking your collective heads, fearing that my students must be difficult to take on if they don't know the noun chart.
Well, one is with a top teacher at the magnet high school. I simply told her to write out her sentences & phrases, and then list the cases in reverse alphabetical order and fill in a chart.
After all, I'd rather former students come up to me and recite a real line of Latin than chant puella, puellae, puellae at me. Yeah, great, you learned your forms--did you read any Latin? No? Then why'd ya take it?!
Of course, my student who's now an 8th grader, hasn't been exposed to all of the cases and he's not the best student either so he'll be suffering. I told his teacher to have him email me. I wish I had his email/phone number right now and I'd call him myself. He wasn't the best student, but he'll do ok.
And here's the other thing about learning endings that is a big mystery to many teachers: some students can memorize charts and reproduce them, but then they can't read a lick or put a sentence together. These teachers are confused by this and don't understand the problem. Of course, the problem is that rote memory is a knowledge level cognitive activity, the lowest on Blooms Taxonomy. But analysis and synthesis are high level cognitive activities.
I found that when I started to TEACH students how to make connections with the endings that they started to perform better. Questions like, "What word on our chart/model sentences has the same ending?" Or metaphrasing and MAKING them stop and NOTICE the endings. I like metaphrasing. I wish more teachers did this. When the sentences get longer, that's when you really need this so the student can see that they CAN figure out a sentence, reading it from left to right, without hunting the verb.
(Which reminds me... I wonder if DanM's book ever came out with the chapter on disambiguating forms.)
Waiting until the student is in advanced Latin is just too late to start these sorts of activities. Metaphrasing when sentences are short and sweet means that one can build these new brain muscles gradually.
Anyway. I'm sure I've explained metaphrasing before. If not, someone post me a comment and I'll elaborate. I've been sitting here too long and there are chores to do.
One of my former 7th graders is at another school this year. His teacher emailed me earlier today and said, is it true that you don't teach a noun chart?
No, I don't.
First, in CLC Unit 1, you only get Nom Dat Acc anyway. Remember, it's presented by frequency, not the artificial way that traditional grammars are laid out. And besides, what AP Latin exam has ever asked a student to decline a noun? Oh sure, they'll ask the case and perhaps WHY it's in that case (esp if some verb taking a dative is lurking or worse, one that takes an ablative). But you don't decline.
It's artificial. It's devoid of meaning. AND, most importantly, it provides more information than students are using and can assimilate. With my young students, it is a distractor.
I use model sentences. By stage 9 they must master:
ancilla puellae statuam dat.
The slave-girl gives the statue to the girl.
ancillae puellis statuas dant.
The slave-girls give the statues to the girls.
dominus servo anulum dabat.
The master was giving the ring to the slave.
domini servis anulos dabant.
The masters were giving the rings to the slaves.
mater patri infantem dedit.
The mother gave the baby to the father.
matres patribus infantes dederunt.
The mothers gave the babies to the fathers.
With macrons, which isn't a problem if they are saying/hearing the word correctly and clearly.
These line up (hard to see here) with a column of NOMS, DATS, and ACCS. We not only memorize these, we then use them in a variety of ways. Sometimes we sub in new vocabulary. FOr instance, take umbra:
umbra umbrae umbram dat.
umbrae umbris umbras dant.
Yeah, a ghost giving a ghost to the ghost is dumb, but it's in context. Or we might just do one word:
mater patri canem dedit.
matres patribus canes dederunt.
And they remember the order of the cases because I teach them "Never (nom) Date (dative) a (accusative) Verb." Ok, some of them think of it as "Never Date a Virgin" but I say verb.
By stage 17 in 8th grade, they must add these phrases:
in villa feminae
in the house of the woman
in villis feminarum
in the houses of the women
in horto amici
in the garden of the friend
in hortis amicorum
in the gardens of the friends
in nave senis
on the ship of the old man
in navibus senum
on the ships of the old men
Of course, I need to take a closer look at the new editions of our textbook which the state legislature finally said they'd pay for. Because, as you may have noticed, I haven't mentioned neuters. CLC does sneak them in and I do talk about them, but they aren't represented here. That's because in Units 1 and 2 they aren't taught formally. Ok, they weren't taught formally, but I think they are now. So I need to make some changes.
Some of you no doubt are still shaking your collective heads, fearing that my students must be difficult to take on if they don't know the noun chart.
Well, one is with a top teacher at the magnet high school. I simply told her to write out her sentences & phrases, and then list the cases in reverse alphabetical order and fill in a chart.
After all, I'd rather former students come up to me and recite a real line of Latin than chant puella, puellae, puellae at me. Yeah, great, you learned your forms--did you read any Latin? No? Then why'd ya take it?!
Of course, my student who's now an 8th grader, hasn't been exposed to all of the cases and he's not the best student either so he'll be suffering. I told his teacher to have him email me. I wish I had his email/phone number right now and I'd call him myself. He wasn't the best student, but he'll do ok.
And here's the other thing about learning endings that is a big mystery to many teachers: some students can memorize charts and reproduce them, but then they can't read a lick or put a sentence together. These teachers are confused by this and don't understand the problem. Of course, the problem is that rote memory is a knowledge level cognitive activity, the lowest on Blooms Taxonomy. But analysis and synthesis are high level cognitive activities.
I found that when I started to TEACH students how to make connections with the endings that they started to perform better. Questions like, "What word on our chart/model sentences has the same ending?" Or metaphrasing and MAKING them stop and NOTICE the endings. I like metaphrasing. I wish more teachers did this. When the sentences get longer, that's when you really need this so the student can see that they CAN figure out a sentence, reading it from left to right, without hunting the verb.
(Which reminds me... I wonder if DanM's book ever came out with the chapter on disambiguating forms.)
Waiting until the student is in advanced Latin is just too late to start these sorts of activities. Metaphrasing when sentences are short and sweet means that one can build these new brain muscles gradually.
Anyway. I'm sure I've explained metaphrasing before. If not, someone post me a comment and I'll elaborate. I've been sitting here too long and there are chores to do.
