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> I have the identical problem and have been using the
> identical solution -- half credit for the meaning of the word
> outside its context, full credit for the meaning of the word
> in the sentence. I have also had the same result -- most
> students STILL won't make the effort to read the sentence.
Part of the problem is that some students don't make the connection to the importance of morphology. In my daily warm-ups, I focus on training students to see the details. So if we're doing verbs, I might throw up a list of verbs in a variety of tenses and person and give the following instructions: circumscribite indicatores temporis et terminationes tum transvertite. That is, part of the instructions is circling tense indicators and endings BEFORE translating. On the quizzes, I give extra credit (just a point, but it adds up) if they use "rigorous reading" (circling and such) on the sentences in question.
For nouns, I might throw up a list and ask them to metaphrase (metaphrasite!--yeah, I made that up), another way to get them to focus on the endings.
There are also practice quizzes that preview some information and that helps too, but I really think teaching them HOW TO SEE the morphology helps considerably--how to see it and connect with it.
Some students will read the sentences but others won't because they are afraid that if they don't know a word or two in the sentence that it's not worth the bother. I also work on getting them to see that even if they come across a word or two that they don't know, that they can sub in a placeholder ("verbed", etc) so they can see the shape and meaning of the rest of the sentence.
I had a student taking a make-up quiz yesterday morning grinning from ear to ear because she remembered the meaning of a word once she *read* the sentence.
I truly think it's worth all this--training them how to see and focus on the endings, giving them the extra point for circling the endings, etc--because it does get more students to the next level of Latin.
I think one reason why Latin is considered/used to be considered to be so hard is that we taught all the morphology up front, which in Blooms Taxonomy of cognitive thinking is just knowledge level/rote memorization, and then moved into reading Latin which is more analysis and synthesis (high level skills). We all know the student who can decline and conjugate and hasn't a clue what to do with a sentence--and this is why. We didn't have much in between the knowledge/low level skills and the high level skills. Some students make/made the leap, some don't/didn't.
I have been trying to build those in-between skills, trying to bridge the gap between the vocab and endings and the context of Latin in a sentence. And it can be frustrating. But it can also be rewarding when you see the strugglers begin to understand just why I make them circle things in the warm-ups--when they see how all the pieces fit together. WHEN they see the big picture--WHY we do all that we do--that's when they start to invest themselves in their work. Students will take shortcuts if no one will show them why they shouldn't. That's just the way students are.
***
And it is all a learning process for both student and teacher. What I see as serious weaknesses in my Latin 2s are things I focus more on in Latin 1.
I've been really out of it lately--such a severe lack of sleep that I can hardly think--but right now I feel like I have my wits about me and I'm remembering something I was brainstorming about the other day: the Latin Toolbox. I'm thinking of making up a review sheet for the current Latin 1's that is extra large (11" x 17") that will be the picture of a toolbox when folded up. It will open, and inside reveal little compartment of "tools" we have and use in Latin: noun endings/verb endings; metaphrasing; circling; rereading; other things. I had a decent list going the other day written on *something* (which unfortunately I think is still at school). The point is I didn't want it to just be a grammar sheet or guide. I wanted it to be more--to have things that make us better at Latin. Things that help us in approaching something written in Latin in front of us.
Yesterday we read "Quintus de se" in stage 16. First we did our prereading (another tool), talking about the title (which allowed me to review how "se" works), then reading/repeating the vocab underneath. Brundisium and Athens was mentioned, so we looked at a map, talked briefly about Roman travel, etc, and that wrapped up the prereading. Then I read the story to them, after which we read the story together--straight through in Latin mind you. After that we went back and translated it together. But when we were done with that I we read it one more time in Latin together, and I warned them that now that they know what it all means, that they needed to read it with FEELING. After that we discussed how good it felt to read it in Latin and understand it in Latin.
In fact, while we're talking about why it's better to understand it in Latin, we had a nice case and point, so to speak, in that story. At one point King Cogidubnus asks, "pecuniam habebas?" Students struggled with translating that because they knew that -ba- meant was -ing but that just sounded dumb. "Were you having money?" Yeah, right. We'd never say that. But this led to a nice discussion on tenses, on the difference between perfect and imperfect and the idea that Cogidubnus wanted to know whether he had money DURING all this time--all this ongoing time in the past. Nice.
I was listening to a parent of an AP Student at another school who said his daughter was *done* with Latin. That the AP Latin Lit lines had gone up this year, that it was hard, hard, hard work all year long--translating and memorizing, translating and memorizing. I know the teacher and I respect her tremendously. And I know her approach to class--having students write out (or have typed out/printed out) all the lines double/triple spaced to have room to write the grammar over the words and a translation. Not a bad approach and certainly makes students accountable for the details.
BUT, in the same time that might have allowed students to write out a complete translation of Quintus de se, during which they would have looked at the Latin only long enough to turn it into English, we read it FOUR TIMES. 3 times straight through in the Latin, seeing the Latin in the context of the phrase, sentence, paragraph and story, and the other time slowly translating it into English, making sure we understood the details.
I haven't taught AP. I'm probably full of stercus because I don't know what I haven't taught. But it seems to me that if we really train students to READ Latin and not just translate it, if we train them to spend more time IN THE LATIN than working on their English, that they will be better, faster readers in the long run.
Surely there's a way to compromise between the hard detail work of writing down every damn thing which is so time consuming, and the fluff of barely touching it once? Surely if we train students to see, TO TRULY SEE the importance of rereading by MODELING IT in class EARLY ON--as I did with this Quintus de se story--then we can trust them to make more appropriate notes on AP homework and to spend the majority of their time just reading and rereading the Latin.
I want my students, when studying for the AP, NOT to be studying translations, but to be reading the Latin and perhaps thinking how much they liked a particular poem or section instead of thinking "I remember that one, what's next..."
I want more time to think and brainstorm and plan. I vowed that I would rest today; I know I've been going full tilt lately and it's just about wiped me out. But I want a full AP class in 2 years. I want it full; I want to get to a point where I never have split-level classes again. It's just too hard and not fair to the students.
Time to locate a test that needs revising.
