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ginlindzey

October 2017

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So I don't post here enough.  I really enjoy describing my adventures in finding better ways to teach reading skills.  I have many friends that are employing Comprehensible Input to great effect, but I haven't gotten there yet, and I suppose in some ways I am on my own journey.  And my journey has always been about learning how to read Latin better and more efficiently IN WORD ORDER, and--more importantly--how to teach those skills.

My Latin 3's are at this very minute taking their midterm exam.  Right before class we were having a crash course reviewing two new quia.com exercises I created.  They know that some of these questions do indeed make it to the exam thus the mad demand for one last review.

The first one is "Qui Connecting Relatives (Only":
http://www.quia.com/quiz/4525361.html

This one is "What is Qui Doing?":
http://www.quia.com/quiz/4526831.html

Both of these are based on the Cambridge Latin Course, stages 31-15.  And what I like most about making things like this is that I feel legitimate if not empowered with the right to ask about them on exams.  And frankly, these were not things I was tested on in high school.  And I definitely never learned about qui connecting relatives in college.  I remember being told to just translate quae cum ita sint in a certain way, but it was never explained and I never understood it.

People like to say that Caesar is easy to read, that he's straightforward, etc etc.  Well, perhaps he is easy to read if you have a total grasp of all the grammar in question backwards and forwards.  But he is not "easy" to read if you don't.  His clauses are long, the indirect statements go on forever, and every now in then his word order is downright poetic.

And yet, it can be easy to read if one is taught the right skills for reading.  And one of those skills understanding what qui is doing, especially when it shows up at the beginning of a sentence.  Now I fully understand why it can jump out of a cum clause, as it so often does--it is connecting the current sentence back to the previous one.  Surely someone could have explained that to me?

Perhaps it is because most professors just *got it* and never needed the explanation.  But maybe if more people understood what quae is doing outside of the cum clause, more people would stick with Latin.  That is, if Latin seemed more readable to a larger audience, perhaps more people would, ya know, read it.

Just my two denarii.  I need to be grading. :-)
Besides totally rethinking how I assess & my pacing for next year, I have other things on my summer to-do list.

1) attend Rusticatio. Of course, I'd need to get my act together and fill out my application and send it in.

2) attend the GT workshop that I'm required to attend (I forgot to last year). Need to get registered for that.

3) determine the first instance CLC uses ille as he, referring to the person in the accusative in the previous sentence; then track all the instances, noting changes or any other nuances

4) track the use of qui transitionals in CLC

5) track the use of datives in replying in CLC. That is, in stage 11 we start seeing things like Quartus fratri respondit. But in stage 40 I know we see something like (and this is off the top of my head), Salvio roganti quid agendum esset, alii alia suadebant. (Something like that). By the time we're into Vergil, we're seeing those datives all the time in conversations.

6) start reading the Caesar that will be on the 2013 AP test.

7) work on the novel I started writing. (yeah, we won't get into that here.)

8) EXERCISE. Tone up. Get fit and FEEL fit.

ahem. Well, there's probably more--especially on certain literary patterns in CLC. But it's time for my dance class. More later.
I recently gave a paper at CAMWS (Classical Association for the Middle West and South). There was a portion in it which I called progressions--how a textbook gets students to the point of being able to read Latin that is more like what they will encounter with a real author. I wanted to put that section here in case others (what few who may read this slow moving blog) may want to comment. Maybe they've observed similar things in the textbook they use.

***
Another feature of the Cambridge Latin Course that I’ve come to admire over the last several years is how they build up from simple to more complex phrasing. For instance, let us consider the phrase “after he said (or heard) these words.” One of the earliest phrasings for this occurs in Stage 21 of Unit 2: postquam haec verba dīxit. Simple enough. But if we follow how this phrase and similar are used subsequently, we see the following progression:

1. Memor, postquam haec verba dīxit, statim obdormīvit. (“Lūcius Marcius Memor” Unit 3 8)

2. Latrō, haec verba locūtus, exiit (“Vilbia” Unit 3 20).

3. Vilbia, simulatque haec audīvit, īrāta fontī appropinquat (“amor omnia vincit: scaena tertia” Unit 3 37).

4. haec verba locūtus, rēgī poculum obtulit (“in thermīs II” Unit 3 48).

5. senex, haec locūtus, lentē per iānuam exit (“Britannnia Perdomita” Unit 3 54).

6. cum Dumnorix haec dīxisset, Quīntus rem sēcum anxius cōgitābat (“Quīntus cōnsilium capit” Unit 3 68).

7. Belimicus, cum haec audīvisset, gladium dēstrictum ad iugulum servī tenuit (“Salvius cōnsilium cognōscit” Unit 3 72).

8. sollicitus erat quod in epistulā, quam ad Agricolam mīserat, multa falsa scrīpserat (“in prīncipiīs” Unit 3 107).

9. deinde renovāvit ea quae in epistulā scrīpserat (“in prīncipiīs” Unit 3 107).

10. haec cum audīvisset, Agricola respondit, “sī tālia fēcit, eī moriendum est” (“tribūnus” Unit 3 111).

11. haec ubi dīxit Agricola, Salvius respondit īrātus, “quam caecus es! quam longē errās!” (“contentiō” Unit 3 112).

12. quod cum audīvisset, Salvius, “ego” inquit, “nōn Cogidubnus, aureōs tibi dedī (“cēna Salviī” Unit 3 150).

13. Belimicus hīs verbīs perturbātus, “nimium bibistī, mī amīce,” inquit (“Belimicus rēx” Unit 3 152).

14. quae cum audīvisset, Haterius adeō gaudēbat ut dē tignō paene dēcideret (“polyspaston” Unit 3 198).

15. hīs verbīs audītīs, praecō, quī Eryllum haudquāquam amābat, magnā vōce, “Eryllus!” inquit (“salūtātiō II” Unit 3 220).

16. tum Messālīnus, simulatque haec Epaphrodītī verba audīvit, occāsiōne ūsus, “satis cōnstat,” inquit, “nūllōs hostēs ferōciōrēs Germānīs esse, nūllum ducem Domitiānō Augustō esse meliōrem (“cōnsilium Domitiānī II” Unit 4 57).

17. quibus verbīs sollemnibus dictīs, Pōlla postēs iānuae oleō unguit fascinātiōnis āvertendae causā (“cōnfarreātiō III” Unit 4 71).

18. quibus audītīs, Salvius spērāre coepit sē ē manibus accūsātōrum ēlāpsūrum esse (“cognitiō” Unit 4 105).

19. hīs dictīs impēnsō animum flammāvit amōre / spemque dedit dubiae mentī solvitque pudōrem (The Aeneid IV.54-55).

20. quam simul ac tālī persēnsit peste tenērī / cāra Iovis coniūnx nec fāmam obstāre furōrī / tālibus adgreditur Venerem Sāturnia dictīs: (IV.90-93).

The transition from a simple postquam clause through various subjunctive clauses to ablative absolutes (and those using a qui-transitional, no less) was gradual but meaningful, supporting a pattern already in place and thus developing into an expectation within the student’s mind. Repetition with slight variations reinforces both structure and meaning so that by the time you get to Vergil (or other authors), such phrases are second nature.
This is one of many progressions from simple to more complex grammar that the Cambridge Latin Course does well. I offer up, to those interested, tracing the type and phrasing of participles, quī transitionals, the use of ille, the position of genitives, and the use of versus and conversus. If conscientious teachers recognize and support through exercises or discussions these progressions, their students will become efficient readers of Latin.
***
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