The Cogen - A Life of Its Own

Last Friday, my school laptop broke, in the middle of teaching. I was devastated. Part of my anxiety is the need to please others and not disappoint anyone, so this was a big moment for me. I held it all in until I finally spoke to the guy in charge and then a full on panic attack ensued.

I finally gathered myself enough to walk back into my room, not caring at that point that my face was bright red and my eyes were fully puffy, and not caring that I was about 3 minutes late to class, expecting to find my class chit chatting and waiting for me. However...

When I walked into the room, I saw the kids of my cogen group leading the class in our five minute check-in. They'd taken it upon themselves to set a phone timer and start class without me. Those few extra minutes let me calm down even more, get class ready, and get to just exist and watch my kids build the community we'd been working for all year. I nearly started crying again, but out of gratitude.

----
Fast forward to Thursday (today). We had an unexpected snow day on Tuesday, so we postponed our cogen meeting until Thursday. I picked up a variety of donuts for our meeting and I admit I was starting to feel a little more confident about this whole thing.

Like clockwork, students started filing in. They grabbed some breakfast and joined each other in the circle, catching up on life's events. Eventually, I joined and we checked in with each other and how things were going.

I thanked them for their help last Friday and those who took a more passive role in it thanked those who were actively leading. They all said they noticed my stress level and decided to just help out. I reiterated how helpful it actually was.

The question today was moreso what we could all do to keep each other and the students engaged. What they discussed was how Latin time is helpful, especially when I ask direct questions and hold them accountable. I appreciated this feedback, and admitted I was also looking for something they could do to help each other. We decided to continue the conversation next week.

---
At this point, we'll be starting phase 2 of the cogen. I asked the group who would like to invite someone from the class to our meeting. They were to be someone from our class who was not already involved. We talked about how this person (who invited them) would then phase out of the cogen and have a job in the classroom. One of the girls volunteered to take on this role.

Next week, we'll meet and we'll start this first round of transitions.

---
Update: Today, I came into 3rd period to find our computer guy waiting for me. He and I were talking and I watched the same students start the check in again. The Cogen officially has a life of its own.


-----------------------------------
Resources:

1. For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'all Too
2. Christopher Emdin's Twitter
3. Bob Patrick's Twitter
4. Bob Patrick's first blog post in his series
5. Bob Patrick's second blog post in his series
6. My first post in this series
7. My second post in this series

The Cogen: Here We Go Again

I crawled into bed the other night when it hit me, "I have a cogen in the morning and I forgot to get goodies at the store!" In my state of panic, my partner reminded me that I could pick up snacks while getting a cup of coffee on my way in. Cogen = saved.

I got to my room and set up the circle and snacks and I waited.

By 7:05 we had two of the four ready for the cogen. We surmised that the other two had forgotten, which I nearly had myself, so we proceeded to discuss.

The Review

We briefly checked in on last week's meeting and what we had discussed. The students remarked that they felt like just the fact that we had met had already changed the classroom culture. That they were serving as models for other students and that the atmosphere was already changing. They also remarked at how well the daily check ins were going and reiterated how much they liked them. 

The Discussion

Today we addressed two questions. The first pertained to class today. We will be doing a read, discuss, and draw and I inquired about how they wanted to do brain breaks. Whether they wanted to let me know when they were ready, or if they preferred I set a timer. They commented that they really like class and sometimes we get so into things, that we don't realise we need a brain break, so we agreed today I'd set timers. 

The second question was "What could I be doing more of in class". They reiterated that check-ins are going well and then they told me their favourite brain breaks so we could use them more often in class. 

Lastly, after speaking to Bob about his cogen, I decided to propose the idea of a remind or Groupme to help with communication. They agreed. So, we'll set one up during class today so we can remind each other of our meetings. 

As we were wrapping up. The students offered to bring food next time so that I wouldn't have to. I offered to bring food if they brought drinks to share. It was a nice ending to a wonderful meeting

Reflection

In the moments between arriving at school and starting the cogen, I still find myself quite anxious. I still want this to go really well and I am still unsure of myself. So, before the meeting I reread Emdin's section on the meetings, questions, and follow up and prepared myself. 

I felt a sense of (maybe) relief, but moreso camaraderie and "family" (if you will) when the students not only expressed happiness but took ownership of the meeting in offering to bring food. It made me feel that not only was this going well, but that the students were feeling a sense of family too - and that doing this was not only going to continue to go well, but was something we should and would continue through the year. 

Over the next two meetings, we'll begin to move to the next phase of the cogen. I am excited to see how it goes and will continue to share my experience. Check out the resources below which include both Christopher Emdin's contact, Bob Patrick's contact, and Bob's own reflections on his cogen. 

-----------------------------------
Resources:

1. For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'all Too
2. Christopher Emdin's Twitter
3. Bob Patrick's Twitter
4. Bob Patrick's first blog post in his series
5. Bob Patrick's second blog post in his series

The Cogen: A First Meeting

Two days ago I sent a message to my partner, "3rd period didn't go well. I'm upset... with myself."

See, what had happened was we were reading a story and I was getting blank stares, mumbles, and I was losing kids who would rather stare at the wall than discuss with me in Latin. While this is not the norm, it has happened a few times in this particular class. I stopped my lesson and asked what was going on. They were silent. I was silent. Finally, they started to speak. What came about was that they didn't understand and I surmised that they were uncomfortable telling me that. What I said to them was, "this my fault." They didn't want to agree, but it's true. I wasn't making what we were doing comprehensible, compelling, or caring.

 My colleagues and I have been reading Christopher Emdin's For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'all Too. In one chapter, Emdin discusses lessons learned from a rap cypher and how one can use that in the classroom for reality pedagogy (Chapter 4). I will admit that I grew up in the 90s when rap cyphers became a part of the popular entertainment culture and I was already familiar with them in that context. What I found quite intriguing and compelling was translating that to the classroom.

I won't go into the basics, as Bob Patrick has already done a great job of that in his own blog series on the matter. I highly recommend you read it and follow it! He and I will be sharing our experience in this journey on these blogs. Instead, I will share my experience with our first meeting.

I had already been wanting to have a cogen with this particular class, but I had been nervous about the whole thing and doing it wrong, when this event happened two days ago. After class I immediately stopped what I was doing and picked out my four students for the first cogen. Following Emdin's recommendations and lessons I spent time considering which students I would ask and ultimately changed my list a few times before feeling like I had a group that represented the variety of the classroom.

The next day, (Thursday - yesterday), I quietly approached each student as they came in and asked them if they'd stay after class for a minute to talk. They weren't in trouble, and that I needed a favour. They all readily agreed.

Now, I must pause here and say, that I was still (and am still) incredibly nervous about doing this. I want to do it right and I have anxiety about messing things up, which often translates to my hiding away and being incredibly self critical. So, when I say I am "following [his] recommendations and lessons" I mean that literally. I have marked pages in the book where I have thoughts and took notes, as well as places where he discusses the cogen and how to have one. Before the end of class, I reviewed his "script" of what to say. When everyone had left, I asked if they'd be willing to meet with me in the morning or afternoon one day to discuss some things that I wanted their help with.

So, this morning I came in with some cinnamon rolls and muffins and I set up a circle of chairs. At 6:55 three of the four students rolled in and greeted me. I welcomed them and invited them to get some breakfast. The fourth arrived shortly after. We sat together and, at first, we just chatted. They talked about food and asked my opinions on coffee. We relished in the fact that we have a long weekend coming up. Once everyone was there and had food, I covered Emdin's three rules, which we all agreed to: (1) we are all equal. I am not above them because I'm a teacher. (2) One person speaks at a time. (3) This meeting was to enact real change in the classroom and that we would hold each other accountable (especially as we are all equal).

The question this morning was "What is something I can do in the first or last five minutes of class to make our experience better". What I found was that, much like Bob discusses, students wanted to continue a 5 minute check in every day and that brain breaks were important.

While nothing "new" came out of the meeting in actual practical practice, what did come out was an agreement that they would help hold me accountable and that I would trust them. Every day we'd continue to check in with each other and build community. Every day, when they said they needed a break, I'd trust them and follow through and they would be honest with what they needed.

To be honest, I really enjoyed this meeting. About 3/4 of the way through, Bob (who is also my department head) came into my room and welcomed them and congratulated them on being my advisers. I immediately saw their posture perk up a little. This was an important moment. We all shared excitement over this cogen and they've agreed to meet with me next week.

As I post about my experience, I will do my best to be honest and as detailed as is appropriate. That being said, there are some resources I also want to share each time:

1. Christopher Emdin's Twitter
2. Bob Patrick's Twitter
3. Bob Patrick's first blog post in his series
4. Bob Patrick's second blog post in his series

BIG Announcement from Pomegranate Beginnings Publishing

OWATP - a new take on OWATS

Recently, I decided that I wanted to give my students some extra practice with the new vocabulary. We were beginning new stories with new vocabulary and I wanted to vary what we were doing and

Latin I student work included words like: via, soror,
comedit, domus, silva, deus, mons, caelum, ursa, and terra

provide support in following days as well as feature some student work.

If you haven't checked out One Word at a Time Stories (OWATS), then I recommend you do. It's a great activity and something I find myself going back to over and over.

This new activity is based on OWATS, but provides some support and opportunity for students who do not feel confident in writing a story. I'm calling it One Word at a Time Pictures (OWATP).

Purpose

My purpose in using this activity is to see how students can use words with each other in new ways and also create materials I can use later to give input in new ways too. One of the things I really liked about this (much like with OWATS) is that I can pick words that don't really seem to go together and then kids get really creative to make it all work. 

Latin II student worked with words like faber, ignis, mater,
puella, flos, fortis, domus, magnus, and parvus

Set-up

This is quite simple to set up:

1. Have a list of words you want to use/target (for whatever reason)
2. Type those words out, put the English (especially if they are new words), and make them nice and BIG :)
3. Cut them out. 

Procedure

1. Students sit in groups (size of your choosing)
2. each group gets one word
3. They draw that word (and label it) in the center of their paper. 
4. They draw a second word and add it to their image. 
5. They continue until they have reached the amount of words you want them to OR have all the words in their image. 
6. EVERY part of the image must be labeled. 
1. if they add something not on your list, it still must be labeled. 
7. Images must be coloured. 

Follow Up

I plan on using these for picture descriptions. You can use a few in one class, or as a warm up! I could also see some other activities as follow up for various levels and classes:

• puzzles
• match the word to the picture (re-label)
• write a story that goes with the picture
• picture discussions
• assessment!  

Gaming in the Latin Classroom: Heroes and Harpies™

When I was trying to figure out how to write this blog, I kept banging my head against the same wall: this particular game was based off of Dungeons and Dragons, a role play game that requires a lot of leadership by a central figure who runs the game and not only organizes play live but has to react to any eventualities that come up--and they come up--when players decide to act differently than you expect them to--which they do. All this to say, it's the type of game that is more difficult to run with no gaming experience.

And I've been trying to figure out how to write a guide for other teachers who may or may not be gamers.

So this post has been put off for over six months because I haven't been able to solve this puzzle.

I have finally come to the conclusion that either one of two things is happening: 1) I am blowing this way out of proportion and I can just give you guys the rules and it will be fine. 2) This is the type of game that gamers can play with students and non-gamers cannot. If that's true, and you are a non-gamer, but want to play an in-depth role-play game with your students, let me direct you instead to my post about last year's game: Bellum Civile: Gaming Caesar's Civil War. This is a much more accessible game with a lot of scaffolding and it was a lot of fun for me as a gamer.

But this time last year I really wanted to dive into a more collaborative, D&D like game, where students would create heroes and fight monsters and even save the world a little. I decided I wanted my heroes to be children of lesser-known Roman gods, and I enlisted my son to help me create the rules--he's great both at helping me brainstorm ideas and at figuring out ways to break the system so I could look for some holes ahead of time--and together we came up with sets of powers that students could buy over time with experience points they earned in encounters. He also helped me come up with some of the encounters and the overlying storyline, and then I created the materials for us to use in class.

I put students into small groups to create their characters; though an experienced gamer, I am a fairly inexperienced Dungeon Master, so running a game with 29 different characters was not going to happen. I ended up with nine characters with between 2 and 4 students running each, and a few half-siblings (I didn't require students to only pick gods no one else had picked).

The first encounter (i.e., fight or interaction) was slow because I had to teach them how to do things, but after a couple, they had things down and could move pretty quickly through the steps. Before each encounter, I wrote a reading, that we handled like any reading, with discussion, clarification, and review, and I gave them a visual reference for each encounter so they could use that to help them plan their moves.

So far, this doesn't seem too difficult. To some degree, this is something anyone can pick up. However, the encounters were designed to highlight the strengths of each character--some emphasized stealth for the son of Muta, and some were convenient to water for the daughter of Fons. Some were good old-fashioned fights to let the daughter of Victoria stand out, and some included large groups because I knew that the daughters of Feronia had both bought powers that would work especially well against a crowd and the daughters of Hecate had just earned their war dogs. Part of running a good game of this type is making sure that each character feels useful and special without being too obvious about it. And this is the part that gets difficult--the personalization.

SO... I am going to provide the materials I made, and the rules, and if you decide to run this game I would love to hear about it! OR if you run this game with adults, I'd love to hear about it, though it's really made for a class. I had exactly three experienced role-players in my class and one other student who had passing knowledge, so they were much less likely to abuse the rules, so they definitely need some serious play-testing before they are ready for that level of play, in my opinion, but I'd love for some beta-testing to happen and then, who knows, maybe I'd release an official version, with credit to any testers!

Below you'll find a link to the game handbook. At some point I'll work on creating a module (a baseline game for the uninitiated) out of the story I made for the class, but it's highly personalized to my students' characters, so I need to work on it a lot before it can become a good module.

Small story: one of my favorite encounters was one of the encounters that went sideways--I'd planned for it to be a basic fight against a cyclops, and that was good, because I'd been out late to see Rent with my son the night before. I wasn't up to heavy thought and was looking forward to simply rolling dice. However my students had a different plan. They decided to negotiate with the cyclops. For the first time ever they didn't just attack. Suddenly I found myself making up rules for negotiating and holding a conversation with them in Latin while searching in my head a way to make sure the encounter would still be interesting and challenging. Luckily they tripped up by offering to prove their wish for friendship! I remembered that one of Hecate's daughters had recently bought an ability to transmute things and answered that the Cyclops always wanted to have a real, true pink sheep to breed with its flock. It took them some time to figure out how to do it; I found that my students often forgot their newest powers. Once they figured it out, they made friends with the Cyclops, who let them cross his island without trying to squish them like ants! It ended up being a really satisfying encounter and cute story, and even though I was totally thrown, barely able to think, and nursing a lack-of-sleep migraine, they never had to know I hadn't planned it the whole time.

Okay, for real now:

Heroes et Harpyriae