ginlindzey | Reading Vergil--some thoughts from a workshop

I'm currently at Austin College at the Richardson Summer Language Institute. This is an extraordinary opportunity for Texans (the grant is local) to go study free. We are reading books 10 and 12 of Vergil, and I am enjoying the readings and discussions tremendously.

I have made some observations, though, which some people will find too critical. I am NOT trying to be critical, only to observe and ponder what I know about teaching and reading Latin. We all, most assuredly, go through periods of doubt regarding our own skills, whether we have bitten off more then we can chew, etc etc. At least I know I do. I know I have always been a worrier, or at least I was as a child. I remember my mom calling me that frequently, though I have no idea what I worried about. I must ask her. ANYWAY, now I turn it to a more productive aspect in contemplating what I do, whether it works or not, how to tweak it, etc.

I have long since gotten out of the habit of writing translations. I was taught in college NEVER to write out translations, even though that was the main way we did assignments my last year of high school. In college we were taught to keep running lists of problem vocabulary, etc etc. I would also, for instance, draw arches over words and phrases that belonged together, and maybe write words in the margins.

Now after being a strong supporter of reading methodologies, using Dexter Hoyos' book/beliefs combined with metaphrasing and such, I find that I work totally differently than other teachers. Mind you, all of us here have not read Vergil in a long time. It has been 20 years for me, easily, and similar for others. Some came to teach Latin after teaching other things; some have a strong background in Greek, others know French. So we all have our weaknesses.

I was invited to join in a group of three others to work on "translating" our assignment that was due today. I had already missed the first part but was happy to join in. I probably made a nuisance of myself by just jumping in and reading out loud. In fact, before I had gone back to get my book (I had stuck my head in their room because I heard loud laughter), I had asked whether they were reading out loud. The reply was, "No, we'll do that tomorrow."

But this is VERGIL.   It should be read out loud, and not everyone taking a line but whole long bits at a go!!! This has perhaps been the one most frustrating thing for me here, because I think we should be teaching better reading skills--not only to the other teachers but in turn to our students. (I am a junior presenter here.) But I'm jumping ahead.

So I joined this happy lot of translators. I wanted to read the equivalent to a paragraph at a time in Latin to get a brief preview of what's happening--skimming, in a sense, to pick up a few things here and there, whether it's vocabulary or the order of words/cases and such.   Someone freaked and said let's just do 3 lines or so at a time. So ok, I didn't want to upset anyone. Our discussions were fairly good and I was by no means right every time about stuff, but was frustrated because they were not reading in word order.

This is so important. This is just SO VERY IMPORTANT. Word pictures are created this way, the story unfolds this way on purpose. Translating into English should be the last THE VERY VERY LAST thing you do. Understanding comes first, understanding the Latin, in order, is first. And things usually unfold more easily this way.

Phrases also jump out this way, as well as if you read more than just a line or two at a time. Things just don't work that way. THIS IS LITERATURE.

And for Vergil's sake READ OUTLOUD!

And when you have figured out what a section is, REREAD it. REREAD IT OFTEN, adding more lines from before and after in order to fix the bigger picture in your head.

OF COURSE students balk at studying for the Vergil AP exam--especially if they read through it once to DECIPHER, write down that translation, correct the translation NEVER looking at the Latin, and then moving on to the next lines, NEVER rereading.

OF COURSE.

<sigh>

One person here has extraordinary listening skills, being fluent in Spanish and French. Another clearly works her students hard with translations and essays, most likely buidling really solid skills. I can't tell you what I do yet. I know that perhaps the way I have structured Latin 3 for the last couple of years hasn't been ideal, using Ecce Romani and doing it split level. I'm not criticizing Ecce, only that I use CLC with the other classes and Ecce was on its way out so I wasn't totally invested. I was also teaching English and trying to keep up with research papers, essays and whatnot. I have my excuses, such as they are, which I fall back on uncomfortably.

BUT I constantly modeled reading whole sections of Latin so that it sounded like A LANGUAGE. I was picky about pronunciation (at least as I modeled it). I constantly did metaphrasing to reinforce READING Latin as it comes.

And I did something I'm going to call spiraling. Maybe that's the right thing to call it, I dunno. I'm sure you can find the first time I did this with real Latin if you look in the archives back to spring of 07. We were reading some Catullus--cenabis bene, I think it started. I read the whole poem to the class first, and asked what they got of it. Very little, and that was ok. Then we translated the first line. After that was understood by everyone, WE ALL READ THAT LINE TOGETHER IN THE LATIN. Then we translated line 2. After that was understood by everyone, WE ALL READ LINES 1 AND 2 TOGETHER IN THE LATIN. Then we translated line 3, then read ALL THREE LINES TOGETHER IN THE LATIN.

And so on until the last line. I think the poem was around 15 lines or so. Therefore we only dealt with the English once per line, but we dealt with the Latin MULTIPLE TIMES PER LINE, depending upon the line.

By the end, I made them read the whole thing WITH FEELING. Then again with MORE FEELING.

WE FOCUSED ON THE LATIN not the damned English. We fixed the vocabulary in our minds that way, in the context of the poem and not in some dumb list to be memorized.

We are sitting here at this workshop--which has many other things to be praised on offer--but we're doing old school read a line and translate going around the room. There is no FEEL for the Latin, no dramatizing, no playing Vergil at a recitation.

Jupiter, no wonder there are kids out there in AP Latin who end up hating Vergil. What drudgery if this is what "reading" Latin means to them.

Last night I did lead a little section on reading theory. I gave out my reading bookmarkers based in Dexter's rules for reading Latin. Bob Cape talked a bit about reading with expectation, Glen Knudsvig style. I then followed up with a handout on different types of metaphrasing I do as warm-ups. Finally we handed out and went over the different rules for disambiguation from an article Dan McCaffrey wrote for TCA back when I was editor.

I'm not in enough of a leadership role to really help these teachers make the transition to reading in word order. I made up reading cards, as I agreed to do last night, this morning even though I overslept. I could have been rereading my Latin for class. I had them ready to go, handed them over to one of the profs, but then they were never used with this morning's readings, even though I suggested we use them after the break with the beginning of our readings in book 12. That's ok. We can bring these things up later.

Sometimes some of us on Latinteach are accused of being too, I dunno, evangelical about our views. But I am cruising through Vergil, not without stops and starts in places, but in comparison to what doing 50+ lines was like for me in college, I am cruising through with time to spare for reading and rereading. I am making myself read out loud, which some may find odd, but it makes SUCH A BIG DIFFERENCE.

This gives me a dimension of fluency in reading and I'm better at reading elisions (most of the time) and even sight reading! This morning, as I said, I woke up late, 2 hours later than planned. No rollerblading around campus for me like yesterday. No breakfast even, but then I have fresh peaches in my room. I made the reading cards and looked over the book 10 readings. I had failed to remember that we were supposed to read in book 12!!! I discovered that while we were sitting in the lounge where we meet, slowly pouring over the lines. When I noticed on the agenda that there was book 12 lines to read, I quickly noted what passage we were currently on and remembered that I felt solid on reading that section. So I skipped to the 20 or so lines that I hadn't read, and read through them two or three lines, getting only stuck in one place that was difficult. I didn't sweat it; I knew we'd go over it. And if I ended up reading those lines, so be it if I wasn't perfect.

If nothign else this was a demonstration that these techniques which I have been teaching and working on using myself do make me a better reader, less panicked at sight. In fact, all of this is sight reading, really, except I can look up words if I need to.

So, I suppose I'm rambling. And it's time to go to the computer lab.

Maybe one day I can team up with some profs to do a workship similar to this, but one that also includes up front better ways to teach and approach reading that actively makes the "students" practice these techniques even if they feel comfortable with their more painstaking decode and translate on paper method.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Before I say this next bit, I love your work and approach and I read your stuff with respect and awe. But my question must be, as someone who is working towards reading Vergil etc, why have you not read him for at least 20 years? Am I working hard at latin just to read a poet who is not worth reading by those who can? This may seem like a cheeky question but I would really like to know!Best wishes from Ray here in rainy England. My email address is r.hobbs@lmc.ac.uk

I blame children, mold (mould to you) in the house (and 2.5 years OUT of the house), teaching middle school, a son with learning disabilities, and other things that have soaked up all my time over the last decade, I guess. Before that, I wasn't teaching Latin. I ran away (to England, for part) for a while and did other things. Long story. And before that, well, I loved Vergil and Ovid and mainly read those authors in college. When I was returning to Latin and to teaching years later, I knew my deficit was in reading prose. In what little time I had to myself for reading Latin, I was working towards improving my true reading skills using other prose authors. For pleasure I was reading Martial and Catullus here and there.

But maybe part of the delay in returning to Vergil was simply fate. It was long enough that now I'm reading him in great measure with just pure pleasure and little hard work. I sweated over lines in college, and in fact just now I left colleagues "working at it" the same way I used to once upon a time. I sat down near them a good 10-20 minutes after they had began, quietly read past where they were, began to help with dinner (we're making a Roman dinner tonight and the groceries had arrived), and overheard when they got to a part that I found a bit tricky. I was curious as to how they would interpret it.

But previous to that section, they were still trudging along, whereas I read the previous lines getting a rush because the action was simply unfolding for me (not being excavated). Frankly it was an amazing feeling.

Anyway, thanks, Ray for the comments. I didn't know I had any readers in the UK. I was toying with coming over to CA in April but have decided against it since one of our conferences will be the same weekend in the city where one of my close friends lives.

Vergil is definitely worth reading. I have really enjoyed what we've read this week and been pleased with how much I'm getting out of the reading personally.

You answered my rather presumpuous question! I am sure you have a lot of readers over here....still raining by the way.

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