Monster Relay Race

Our ones are beginning to get body parts and numbers. I love teaching these things. It is like a free license for me to go crazy with my favourite stories! I love building monsters and playing with ideas like what is the "norm" and expected. Last year, as an example, I wrote stories from Orthrus and Cerberus' perspectives (these are available via our subscription on our website: steppingintoci.com ). They are a pair of brothers (and monsters) who protect various things and can be particularly violent.

So... of course I jumped at the chance to do something unique this time!

Enter.... The Monster Relay Race!

It's part running dictation, part Invisibles,  part relay race, and part dice game. I was hoping the kids would enjoy it and it turns out... they ran with it (pun intended). So... let's get down to the nitty gritty.

The Basics

1. Prep Time - ~10-15 minutes
2. Instructional/set up time - ~5 minutes
3. Activity Time - ~1/2 the class
4. Grading Time - As long as you'd like it to be. 
5. Supplies Needed:
1. vocab list that includes body parts and numbers
2. dice (I used 8 sided dice, but you can use any... the more side, the more varied the work you'll get)
3. coloured eggs (Try the dollar tree or 5 Below. Amazon has them too year round)
4. a container for your eggs
5. colouring supplies

Instructions

1. First, students will get into groups of four. They will need the paper with the instructions on it (attached below), and a die. 
2. Second, students choose jobs. The jobs I allowed were:
1. cursor - runs to get an egg
2. aleator - rolls the die
3. pictor - draws the image
4. scriptor - writes the sentences
3. Students race to collect five body parts (in order by coloured egg). 
4. Once they have a body part, they roll the die which tells them how many of that body part are needed in their sentences and picture. 
5. They construct the sentence and the scriptor writes it down.
6. The pictor draws that body part. 
7. When all five parts are collected, they work as a team to finish the image (background included) and colour it. First team to turn it in, and get it done according to instructions, wins. 

Options/Variants

When kids turned it in to me, I was very strict on what I would accept, given the rules. When I grade it, however, I will be not so strict, considering this was  a race. What I looked for was:

• 5 body parts with 5 numbers. 
• 5 separate sentences... in Latin.
• colour in the image.
• a back ground
• numbers written out in Latin and spelled correctly (they were written on the board for the students)

This drug out the game a little and allowed groups who process more slowly to catch up to the speedy groups. When I grade these, however, those specifications go out the window. What I'm looking for is:

• Does the image and body parts match the sentences in type and number?
• Can I understand what they wrote?

I've given some examples below. The captions help clarify these points. 

This is the winning group. They were not the first, second or third to try and turn it in, but they were the first to get all my points right!

This group made their sentences easy to read and super clear! Their image matches very well. 

This group originally wrote 1 sentence. While any other time this would be fine, for the rules of the game, it didn't work. They had to go back and work out what they did. What was really cool, however, is that they ended up varying some sentences and creating some great examples. 

Here is a copy of the paper I made!

Using Stranger Things' Demogorgon: Connecting Pop Culture to Ancient Authors

This group really did a great job finding themes to compare.

The end of the semester is tough; not only are students exhausted and stressed by testing (both standardized and local), but it can be equally difficult to time the end of new material so that it's familiar enough to be worth testing.

This year I found I needed a filler day--so I created a short, light lesson based on the recent popular Netflix series Stranger Things. I wanted students to recognize and think about the echoes of the Greeks and Romans that we still see today, and though it's easy to point at architecture and art, I like the chance to focus on some popular culture and an unexpected (i.e., not military or mythology-based) reference.

So I researched the Demogorgon.

Quick background clarification: I am a geek and I love most things geeky, including table top role play games. Especially Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (hereafter AD&D), my introduction to RPGs and the reason I got to know my eventual husband.

When we were watching Stranger Things and the Demogorgon became a central concept and reference, I was inspired to research the Demogorgon in Latin to find out its declension (not to use in class, but just because I wanted to know--I am super cool). Because I knew there would be a Latin version.

Something you may not know, if you are not my special blend of Pliny the Elder and AD&D fan, is that many or most of the AD&D monsters were ultimately derived from Pliny the Elder, after taking a quick detour through medieval bestiaries. My favorite example of this, partly because the connection between the AD&D Monster Manual to Pliny's work is so unmistakable, is the catoblepas, an animal described by Pliny as a slow-moving land creature with a head so heavy it can't lift it, which is fortunate, since whoever it looks at dies immediately (Naturalis Historia 8.77). Pliny's catoblepas definitely inspired medieval imagination, and finally Gary Gygax, the author of AD&D's Monster Manual, found its description in a bestiary and brought it into the game he co-created.

The point of this sidetrack is that only a very few of the creatures featured in AD&D materials are original; most of them come from Classical and medieval sources.

I liked the connections between depictions this group found
and the summary of Boccaccio's description.

So I knew that the word "Demogorgon" existed somewhere in Latin. And I wanted my students to feel that connection that I am constantly making between my every day experiences and Classical resources. I wanted them to see how ideas are transmitted throughout the centuries and to trace their paths.

And I really, really enjoyed Stranger Things. So this was an excuse to bring it up.

What I ended up cobbling together (this could be done much better, but I did not have time, so it's a shallow, mediocre version of what this activity could be) was a description of Plato's Demiurge, Boccaccio's description of the Demogorgon, a 16th century block print illustrating the Demogorgon, the AD&D description of the Demogorgon, and images of Stranger Things' "Demogorgon." Then I put students in groups and asked them to find connections between the depictions, either one common thread, or a separate connection between each depiction.

This group chose to condense the
depictions into one concise image.

I heard really great conversations as I roamed between the groups--the kinds of conversations I was hoping for--and got some great results that I've posted here and hung in the hall.

This is a good, almost no-prep, lesson that could be used to change class routine or just because you and/or your students are great fans of Stranger Things. The handout is here (Demogorgon Handouts), and the only other thing you need is butcher paper for each group. I let them use markers, crayons, scissors and glue to help them organize and present their thoughts on the connections between all of these varied representations.

Perspective is Everything: Lenticular Art

A couple of months ago, the talented and resourceful Laura Sexton (@SraSpanglish on twitter) posted the following video:

She was looking for a way to use the video in her Spanish class.

Perspective is everything. Figuratively, in that even though I had seen the video before, I didn't have a thought about using it as a springboard for a class activity. Literally, in that lenticular art changes based on the angle at which you view it.

The concept seems complicated, and you will find that almost every tutorial online for creating lenticular art (I tried not to have to reinvent the wheel) is based on technological knowledge and special equipment. However, you don't really need Adobe Photoshop and a 3D printer to create lenticular art--you just need to be able to fold paper.

My lesson idea was really aimed at a brain break for my students. Due to the way things timed out in our district, my students had been taking two high-stakes tests per day the previous week (I'm sure I don't need to tell you my feelings on intensive testing, but if you're not sure, you can read about it here), were about to start another round of high-stakes testing, and it just seemed like they needed something calm, creative, and different.

I started by showing them the video above to introduce the idea.

The instructions were simple:
1. Create a two-part message in Latin. It can be a serious or as humorous as you like.
2. Design an image to go with each part of your message. The image will be in full color (no white paper)--this is important so the lenticular effect is clear.
3. Follow the instructions on the handout!

Here is the handout that I gave my students, explaining how to make art of their own.

I think it turned out great!

Now I have wonderful multi-dimentional art to decorate my wall.

Two Sentence Horror Stories

Olim, fur villam magnificam direptam intravit quod
pecuniam vult et quaerit.  Sed postquam nox advenit,
sanguis effundit per ianuas et fur numquam revenit.
(Once, a thief entered a run-down magnificent house
because he wants and seeks money.  But after night
arrived, blood flowed through the doors and the thief
never returned)

(This has been reposted on my new blog as well! See it here)

A short, sweet, and easy Halloween activity.  Or anytime you feel like writing horror stories, really.

A few months ago, io9 published an article about a recent Reddit activity online.  Participants were asked to write horror stories and post them on Reddit.  The stipulation, however, was that they could only be two sentences long.

As difficult as that is to do, there were many takers and some really great fiction came out of the event.  Read the io9 article I linked above.  It's really amazing how much can be communicated in just a few words.  When I read it, a lightbulb went off in my head and the article was filed away in my brain somewhere under "There Has To Be Some Way I Can Use This In My Class" (long file name, longer file contents).

(I looked at my mirror.  I saw another man.)

Last week, inspired by the holiday and expecting my classes to be at least somewhat active (says ten years' previous Halloween experience--and who am I to argue with experience?), I decided that I had found the right moment to use this idea.

I began the class by handing out and going over a compilation of horror vocabulary, Vocabula Terrifica, that Miriam put together earlier this month.  After running quickly through the vocabulary, I told them about the io9 article and read a couple of the examples in English.  Then I put them into small groups, where they were asked to write Latin two sentence horror stories and illustrate them on a colored sheet of paper.  Lastly, they were asked to tape them on the wall when they finished.  The few groups who finished early were able to go around and read other groups' stories.

It was a nice way to spend Halloween.

My wall ended up so colorful!  As a bonus, my language arts students asked me to read them some of the stories.

How to Make an Ablative Absolute Quilt (From my article in the Classicist)

Today I woke up and (as happens all-too-often) realized that I really had no realistic plan for teaching my Latin II class. I was bored with the normal day-to-day activities that we all do as standby, and wanted to do something a little different.

As I stood looking around my room, willing my desks and chairs to give me an idea, that ever-elusive muse of teaching touched me and I knew what I was going to do with my students—we were going to make a quilt! A paper quilt, clare, because I don’t have the money for fabric or ... (you can read the rest here)

Activity for an Insomniac: Quick, Easy, and No Prep!

Last week I was facing my class after a night of almost no sleep.  Like many teachers, there are those times when my head gets filled with a huge list of responsibilities that have to be carried out in the next day or week.  This was one of those times; I woke and started working out how I was going to get everything done.  Unfortunately this was around 1 AM.  Which meant that when I finally got to school and had to teach around 6 hours later, I had little energy to offer my students.

Often on days where I'm sick or feeling wiped out (which are rare) I fall back on worksheets, which my class receives rarely enough that a worksheet elicits concern from my kids. 

This time, however, my son had just been sick the week before and I had given the substitute worksheets for my students to do while I was away.  I really had no interest in giving them worksheets again.  As the clock ticked closer to our late bell, I finally realized what I could do that would be low impact on me and enjoyable to my kids.

I assigned a comic.  They were required to form small groups (I arranged the desks in 4-person "tables" before class actually started) and write a comic in the passive voice (the grammar topic we've been working on).  Once I had all the comics turned in, I taped them around the hall, far enough away from each other that students wouldn't have to crowd each other to read them.

Lastly, because I wanted them to interact with each other's work, I gave each group seven squares of paper.  The papers were new comic panels, I explained,  for them to write and illustrate new endings for their classmates' comics.  Groups fanned out and eagerly read the other comics and discussed the best way to change each story.  There was a lot of discussion, a lot of laughter, and only a little need for a Latin teacher.   So I stood back and watched the movement and the relaxed Latin atmosphere.  

 I will break this activity out again sometime--it's a great rainy day activity with its natural kinesthetic aspect and light tone.  Yet students had to flex their Latin muscles too as well as solve the problem of writing an entire story in the passive voice (try it--it's hard).

If you've used similar activities in your classes, I would love to hear about it!  Post below.

Building Culture with Legos

This is now also hosted on my new site, as a Throwback Thursday post!

I love Legos.  As I type that, I realize that I start my posts with those words a lot: "I love".  I think, though, that it's my passion for all the things I do in class that lets me know I'm in the right place.  I always have something to get excited about.  Today, it's Legos.

Legos are amazing.  You can use them to make almost anything.  I remember the first time I got a Lego piece that had a hinge.  It opened my building world in a new way--Legos with moving parts meant building airplanes with functioning cargo bays, rockets with a door for the astronauts, a drawbridge, and, with a bit of thrust on my side, a sort of catapult that worked.  I remember these different projects because through Legos, you get to imagine, plan, and construct a concept.  It becomes personal.

I can't bring my students to Rome.  It'd be neat, but it's also prohibitively expensive, so only a few would be able to go, even if I were in a position to design and carry out a student trip.  I also can't bring Rome to my students.  Not only is this also prohibitively expensive, I am pretty sure there are laws and regulations regarding moving large marble (okay, marble-faced) ruins between nations.

I can, however, have my students build Rome.  I would not even be the first person to do this.  Over the years it has become tradition to ask students to build a model of some part of Rome: the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the temples and aqueducts and streets (it's especially fun to build Roman streets using food!).  Building was a major part of Roman life and experience; Rome was always under construction in some form of another, much like cities today.  Romans were known for and proud of their engineers and architects.

Recently, though, thanks to a student's idea, I asked students to bring in Legos.  Any they would like to donate.  We didn't get a huge collection going (though now I know I want a huge collection, so it will happen in time), but we got enough to designate some Legos to each of five groups of students.  We had hit a section of the book that discussed Roman military camps, and students were not really diving into that particular cultural topic.  We needed a way to connect to the camps emotionally, or at least personally.

Legos make connections.  Almost all children play with Legos, which means there is automatically a positive emotional response to the nostalgic toys.

In the five groups mentioned above, I asked students to do their best to rebuild the Roman military camps they saw drawn in their textbooks.  They had a pile, or bag, or box, of Legos and their ability to convert concepts symbolically.  Each group worked together diligently, instructing, sometimes arguing with, each other to create the best representation of a Roman military camp that they could build with a limited supply of Legos.

It was fun, and each group came out of the activity with the ability to describe the camp layout to me.

They included details such as tables in the mess hall.

Next year, I want to do something similar, but take it much deeper.

When we learn about the layout of a Roman city, why not build a Roman city?  It can be done cross-class, with groups in each class responsible for different parts of the city.  I can create a map layout on a cheap, dollar-store shower curtain, and they can piece their city together on the map.  We can follow up with "tours" of the city (maybe I'll bring some of my son's minifigs--the Lego people--to help focus the discussion), telling stories that take place around the city, and generally using the huge Lego model for a while in order to really help students get familiar with the baths, amphitheaters, etc., in a meaningful way.

If I require students to communicate in Latin while they build, imagine the deeper, more creative thought they have to reach in order to get the job done.  Yet they will be using Legos, which will make it a much more appetizing type of activity.  Building with a familiar and generally well-loved toy will soften the effort it will take to think and speak in Latin.

I think the next step would be to move outside the range of Legos and have students achieve simple feats of engineering that reflect Roman achievements, such as aqueducts, catapults, and the arch, with basic supplies such as bendy straws, rubber bands, and popsicle sticks.  If they have to solve problems (here are these items, now make this) in Latin, it forces students to use Latin in a very meaningful way.

Bringing culture to life using Legos will help my students transition from building-block language to truly mastering it as a communicative force.

"Drawing" Connections

I am a huge fan of art.  I have drawn all my life--I can't remember a time when I didn't draw.  And I have always used art and drawing to help me connect to the world and to understand feelings and concepts that may not have been as clear otherwise.

Art is an effective tool.  Too often, art is pushed aside as unnecessary, a distraction from what is "really" important.  In the educational climate today, with a focus on "core curriculum"--a term that marginalizes other valid topics of instruction--many schools are shutting down art programs as well as other "electives".

But art is actually a great window into another aspect of brain function.  All too often in school we focus on using recall, memorization of facts, and don't tap into the creative side of the brain; whether or not you agree with Gardner's Multiple Intelligences, approaching information from multiple pathways builds more connections between neurons and simply makes it easier to remember.  When those pathways cross brain hemispheres, the connections are more varied and become stronger.

My students are tested with explicitly grammar-based questions.  I have been struggling with the best way to help them understand the grammar and still stay true to my wish that Latin instruction be about communication and using the language.  It's a difficult balance.  My upper levels especially have to deal with topics they never think about: the subjunctive mood, the passive voice, participles, etc., and they have a hard time wrapping their heads around the concepts in English--in Latin it becomes nearly impossible.

When I most recently lived in Oklahoma I taught in a small private school, and that school had adopted a program called A+ Schools.  This program champions the use of higher-order thinking and the arts, not only as separate subjects, but incorporated into the classroom as a means of deeper learning.  I experimented a small amount with art in my classes then, but really only started using it this year.

I was frustrated because my students had overall failed the previous test.  I was even losing sleep--which turned out to be the perfect situation to remember A+ and the idea of art infusion.  The next morning, I swept into the room carrying sheets of bulletin-board paper and gave the class their instructions: in groups of four, they had to "draw the subjunctive."  

Whenever a teacher asks anything that, well, weird, there are always protests and questions.  "How do we do that?" is the most common and obvious question.  And, since I really wanted them to internalize and think about the information and the ways in which it could be represented visually, I refused to answer that question.  In truth, there was no right answer.  If they wrote sentences and illustrated them, that would be fine.  If they created a flow chart, that would be fine.  Whatever path to visualization they found would please me, so I simply told them, "You get to figure that out--all I want is that it represent both the imperfect and the pluperfect subjunctive."  I knew that the completely new approach was uncomfortable for them--so I went around, reinforcing that I'm not looking at the quality of the artwork here (I love stick figures!), just the quality of the connection.

Unfortunately (perhaps tragically) I don't have any pictures of that first--and best, in my opinion--round of drawing grammar.  Since that first try, students are much more willing to draw abstract concepts, and several have approached me to let me know that it really helped them understand what we were learning.  It forces them to process information--even if, as in the most recent version of the activity, they were creating and drawing sentences more than interpreting grammatical concepts.

The success that my students expressed to me was reflected in their work.  After they had created their posters, students had no difficulties creating sentences using the subjunctive correctly.    

In addition, a couple of weeks ago, I created a "scavenger hunt" based on the posters my students had created.  The scavenger hunt really brought closure to the activity that I hadn't realized it was missing--so I will definitely be doing that again.  Since all of the posters are student-conceptualized and student-created, the scavenger hunt remained personalized and caused students to read each others' posters and interact more deeply with that information than they had beforehand.  As a bonus, students enjoyed the chance to have their work viewed by their friends.

Are there other activities that use art in this way?  I know I have taken this sort of large activity (that takes up almost an entire class period!) and minimized it into students writing and illustrating a sample sentence for a grammar topic (I did this last week as part of a learning station).  I have used other art forms (such as haiku--which is such a versatile poetic format!) that students must still use with the grammar, and asked them to create songs to reflect new grammar topics (which inspired me to create one myself).  What ways have you asked students to "draw" connections?

Eat Your Grammar

I'm not naturally a grammar person.  Check that--I am completely a grammar person, but I'm not naturally a grammar teacher.  On a personal level, I love grammar.  I love to take language apart into little tiny pieces, examine it, poke its innards a little, then put it back together like a Frankenstein project.  I love to make grammar jokes at my poor husband, who hates grammar and my jokes.

But I know that in each of my classes of 30 or so students, maybe two or three of them feel the same way I do (a high number, but I do teach Latin, and generally the more logically-inclined students are the ones who sign up).

So when I teach grammar, I try to find ways to make it easier to digest.

One method, which I'll publish here later on, is to do daily snippets of Latin I call "Daily Grammar Practice"--a method I completely stole from my year of teaching English and re-imagined to fit Latin.

Another thing I do, which I am sharing here in this post, is to help students draw connections between the grammar concept and something more concrete.  The rare 2nd declension noun that ends in "r" (like "puer" and "vir") is a ninja in my classroom ("he's sneaky and infiltrates the 2nd declension in secret").  Adjectives are stalkers--they want to be just like the nouns they describe (but are ultimately themselves--to avoid declension confusion).  And conjugations are like cookies.

I would love to take full credit for this idea, but it's honestly not my own.  A wonderful lady presented at Nationals about how she uses Oreo cookies to help students understand conjugations.  At the time I was completely anti-explicit-grammar, so I sort of went "that's neat" and filed the idea away but did nothing with it.

Fast forward many years and different experiences.  I find myself in a situation where I have to teach some grammar explicitly.  And last week I was facing the daunting task of teaching conjugations, which tends to make some students want to bang their heads on their desks (I know, because they do it).

Enter a food-based bribe.

I didn't tell them anything about what I was doing.  I just had them sit in pairs (I cannot afford to buy enough cookies for each of my 120 Latin I students, alas) with a paper towel and four cookies in front of them.  Each cookie was different--one was the classic Oreo, one was double-stuffed, one was mint, and one was chocolate.

Then I had them make observations: how were the cookies different from each other?  What was special about each one?

On the board I had drawn a picture of each type of Oreo and given an example of a verb in the correlating conjugation.*  From there, they picked out the dominant vowel for each conjugation and I helped them figure out the main features of the infinitive for each conjugation (conjugations, infinitives, sum, possum, volo, and nolo are all grammar features in this particular chapter).

The completed chart on the board looked like this:

Which is a lot of grammar to digest.  So that was it for grammar for the day.  We sang songs and made up some Latin stories together (generally via TPRS and what the TPRS gurus refer to as either PQA or mini-stories).

We didn't touch the grammar again until the next day.  I had the desks arranged in groups when they entered and they self-selected who they would be working with simply by sitting down.

This is where I added my own twist to the lesson.  Yeah, we connected conjugations to cookies, something concrete, but it's still a little forgettable.  I really wanted students to synthesize the information and make it their own.

So I had them make posters.  I actually do something similar to this quite often with abstract concepts.  I told students each group had to make a poster that answered the age-old question, "How is a Conjugation like a Cookie?"  After fielding the normal range of questions, like "How do we draw that?" ("That's the fun part--you get to figure it out!"), "Can we use other types of cookies?" ("Yes"), "Can we come up with our own concept?" ("Yes, but let's keep it food-based, just for simplicity."), I told the kids to go at, and the biggest rule was that I didn't want to see my chart from the day before repeated.

My goal was for them to find their own connections between the conjugations and a symbol that they have chosen.

Some groups stuck with the Oreo theme, but recreated the concept in their own words with their own connection.

Most groups came up with their own cookie examples: sugar, chocolate-chip, oatmeal-raisin, etc.  Some groups wanted to really move outside of cookies and find their own concept.  I have a pasta poster, a sandwich poster, a pocky poster, and a bread poster.  Most importantly, though, they took the concept and made it concrete for themselves.

*For Latin teachers interested in doing the same activity, the Oreos break down as follows:

• The Original Oreo: the original Oreo is the regular oreo.  It is standard.  It follows the rules.  Much like the first  conjugation , you know what to expect and what you are going to get when you get the original Oreo.  That and "a" is the first letter of the alphabet--another connection to make.
• The Double-Stuff Oreo: double the stuffing represents double the "e" or, better, "ē".  The extra room is for the long vowel.  The "e" is everywhere, too--even in first person singular.
• The Mint Oreo: the mint is different, unexpected, out of the ordinary recipe of chocolate and vanilla.  The third  conjugation is also different.  It is a little 2nd conjugation, a little 4th conjugation, and hard to pinpoint.  Another Oreo that would work for this conjugation is the one that has chocolate and vanilla cookies sandwiched with the creme.
• The Chocolate Oreo: the cookies are chocolate.  The cream is chocolate.  The whole cookie is chocolate all the way through.  Just like the "i" in the 4th conjugation.  It's in every form.

My students felt left out because I wouldn't take actual pictures
 of them, so this was my compromise.