PBP Proudly Announces: Itinera Petri: magnum periculum

 

Announcement: Help during COVID!

Salvete! 

In an effort to help support each other during this time, Pomegranate Beginnings Publishing is offering PDFs of any and all of our published books, for FREE, to teachers for use with classes! 

We ask two things in return: (1) That you do not share the PDF with others (except your students), and (2) That when we go back to class and you need copies of our books, you purchase them. 

As of now there is no time limit on this offer, as we want to do our best to support everyone. So... If you'd like to contact us for a PDF copy of any of our books. Click the image below :)

In addition to this, we offer a reading library on our main site: www.steppingintoci.com

FVR - a project in three parts

I have started and deleted many a post on Free Voluntary Reading (FVR). In fact, I have a draft sitting there which goes through the last 3 years of iterations of FVR in my classroom that... one day.... I swear I'll publish. Today, however, I want to detail the project I gave my current IVs this year. I am quite impressed with how it has gone and, I'll admit, part of me wants to post this to brag on my students and how well they are able to handle things because I really am impressed. We are two weeks into the school year and my IVs keep impressing me more every day. I'm so stinking proud of them :)

Some Background

A few things you should know before I tell you what I did. 

• My IVs started FVR in Latin II Spring semester. First they started in groups, then individually with small group discussions, and now individually with whole class discussions. 
• We try to buy all the novellas as they come out, after the teachers read them and determine if we think our kids will like them. 
• Right now we have a wide variety of novellas (although not all or enough in my opinion) and the list of Latin novellas is growing daily! I am so excited.

The Premise

Last year, Rachel and I did a book study on The Reading Whisperer and Readicide. You can listen to our book study and see our notes here. In May, I spoke to our team (Keith Toda, Robert Patrick, Rachel Ash, and John Foulk) about the possibility of doing a project based on The Reading Whisperer and what she does with her elementary students to get them interested in reading. I expanded it because we are reading in a second language and sometimes it can be daunting trying to figure out if a novella is (a) interesting to you and (b) appropriate for your level of proficiency. 

The Process

Desired Result

a catalog of the novellas we currently have that includes all the details a student might want to determine if this book was one they wanted to read:

1. title + author
2. description of cover
3. number of pages...
1. in the book
2. in each chapter (average)
3. of chapters
4. genre
5. details about the dictionary
1. on the page
2. in the back
6. a short description in English no spoilers

A Process in 3 Parts 

We completed this process in three pieces and this took us about 7 days (15-20 min per day) over the course of 2 weeks. 

Part 1

Students worked individually for ~3 days with the novellas. They took a novella that they hadn't read in the past (ideally) and took notes on the basics of the novella (title, author, pages, etc) and then some other notes on the feel and idea of the book including the difficulty/ease of reading and notes on the dictionary.

Part 2

Students got into groups of 2-3 and worked together on the books they'd done to get all the information asked for (including the English summary) and submitted it to a survey online. Between 2 classes of Latin IV students, I got ~75 responses over the course of another ~3 days. 

Part 3

Once I got all the responses, I compiled them into lists by novella. I gave each group 2-3 novellas. Their job was to compile all the information into 1 single entry about the novella. They wrote it out and gave it to me. This took about ~30-40 minutes on 1 day. 

Follow Up

So, what am I doing with all this info? Well, a few things;

A grade

Students received a grade for the notes they took in the beginning. I looked to see whether students communicated how difficult the book was and what notes they took on the subject of the book. 

A catalog

I compiled all their notes into one single catalog. Then, we printed QR codes to go on the backs of the books and had them taped on. Now, any time a kid wants to read a book, but isn't sure what it is about, they can scan the code and get a quick view of all the details of the book. 

It's a win/win :) 

Movie Talks and Novellas: CI Articles in Teaching Classical Languages

Movie Talks
I am excited to share with you that I had an article published in Teaching Classical Languages, CAMWS's peer-reviewed journal. I presented over the usefulness of Movie Talks and how to prepare and deliver Movie Talks a couple of years ago at ACL Institute, and was approached by John Gruber-Miller to write an article, so I am really pleased that I got this opportunity to publish my article.

My article begins with Comprehensible Input theory and a little discussion of Second Language Acquisition, and it is really the place where, at least to myself, I first articulated the three C's of CI: Comprehensible, Compelling, and Caring. Since then, we (Keith, Miriam, Bob, and myself) have spent a lot of time supporting that triple structure because I think it resonates with all of us, but it was in writing this article that I was able to simplify the concepts into those three words.

After that, the article clarifies how Movie Talks apply CI theory to concrete teaching practice and gets to work describing them and how to write and deliver them effectively in the classroom. I provided examples, all linked in the article, which is why I haven't written about them here--I didn't want to post anything I had already promised to the article.

If you want to read more, you can find the article here:
The MovieTalk: A Practical Application of Comprehensible Input Theory

Novellas
In addition, John Piazza, another awesome CI Latin teacher had an article published in this issue of Teaching Classical Languages. His article discusses the recent rise of Latin novellas and their potential uses in the Latin classroom. When explaining why the novellas had been written, I especially appreciated Piazza's emphasis on the difference between extensive (a lot of Latin with repetitive, sheltered vocabulary) and intensive (varied vocabulary and emphasis on close interpretation of grammar, etc.) readings, and the lack of extensive reading provided by current textbooks.

Piazza then describes ways to use novellas in class. He points out that one of the strengths of using a novella that allows all students to comprehend the story is (158)

that the successful reading of a chapter or a passage, or the entire novel itself, is not the end, but rather the beginning or midpoint of a process whose outcome is the interpersonal and creative use of the language as communication. Once basic understanding has been achieved, students are encouraged to use the text as a means to demonstrate a broader form of creative proficiency that is not limited to the book or the text or the vocabulary specific to that book.

In addition to discussing use of novellas as whole-class readings, Piazza describes Free Voluntary Reading and how he has organized it in his classes, and even provides an overview of Latin novellas that have been published. Piazza intersperses all with links to activities for using these novellas in classrooms, how he has used them in his own classes, how others have used them, and a page that he keeps up-to-date concerning Latin novellas.

To read the full article, you can find it here:
Beginner Latin Novels, a General Overview

Definitely an article worth reading!

CI Curriciulum, Untextbooking, Student Choice and Teacher Planning

This post comes to us from Dr. Robert Patrick. Dr. Patrick teaches with both Rachel and me and is a great influence on me as both a colleague and my father. ~Miriam Patrick

One of the hot topics these days among CI teachers in general and perhaps Latin teachers in particular is how to create and then prepare to teach without textbooks.  I’ll spare a defense of dropping textbooks as a quick search through this blog will catalog the problems with all our textbooks.  The driving force of a CI classroom are the principles, of course, but really two things:  compelling material and understandable messages in Latin.  Those messages come through the teacher who speaks to students in Latin that they can all understand and through readings that they can all read.  The talk and the reading must be interesting to them.  Coupled with some classroom practices that make learning Latin a friendly and supportive experience, this approach has grown our program over the last 11 years by 400%.  

We will begin the Fall of 2016 with about 700 students and 5 Latin teachers.  We will also be continuing ongoing work, evolution through trial and error, our CI work, Untextbooking and Standard Based Grading.  In what follows, I want to outline how we create and prepare our curriculum.  For the third year now, we will be doing our work with no textbook.  This work is entirely a collaborative effort of Caroline Miklosovic, Rachel Ash, Miriam Patrick and myself.  Next year we will be joined by Keith Toda.  What we are doing would never have happened as a result any one of us doing what we do best, but has evolved and continues to as we pool our efforts, skills and insights.  I share here with this declaration, that this work belongs to no single one of us and only results from a daily commitment to collaboration and sharing.  Quite frankly, we believe that the future of Latin in this culture depends on such collaboration and sharing.

We began with a list of topics that met two criteria:  1) they included topics we thought students might have interest in and 2) they were topics we felt we could teach from Latin authors (or many periods) either directly or (more commonly) through embedded versions that we would prepare from them.  You can see immediately the two core principles at stake: compelling materials and understandable messages.  So, for example, if a topic depends on you working with an author that you are unprepared to work with, don’t offer it for student consideration. If you know that offering “Roman Couples” means working with the Heroides, which you love, and your Latin 2 students choose that, you will need to do much embedding, and that’s a lot of work.  Balance what you offer them with what you are prepared to do and/or co-create with a colleague. You do not have to have multiple Latin teachers at your school, but it is really important to have some other Latin teachers that you can collaborate with.  The marvels of the internet and things like Google Docs make that easier than ever.

Here was our original list:

• Roman thoughts on other cultures (Cicero)
• Roman Virtues (what Romans valued in themselves)
• Couples relationships/myths
• Battles and Wars
• Roman History
• Roman heroes and legends
• Romans Science and Philosophy
• Roman games
• Roman Women
• Roman Daily Life (Cf. JoAnna Shelton)
• Roman Religion and Philosophy
• Fables
• Roman Government and Law
• Modern Literature in Latin (Harry Potter, The Hobbit, Dr.Seuss, Charlottes Webb, Treasure Island, Fairy Tales)
• Roman Comedy and Drama

We posed those topics to students in the Spring of the year who were in Latin 1-3 asking them to identify topic they wanted to encounter in the next year of Latin (2-4). We tallied their results, demarcated topics by level (so as not to have too much overlap--though we did allow for some overlap), and established what our curriculum for the next year would include.  That year, the curriculum looked like this:

Latin 1--Mythological stories written by the teacher based more on high frequency vocabulary than any particular author; Fables from Aesop, Phaedrus et al (much thanks to Laura Gibbs for her wonderful online materials).

Latin 2--Fables; Mythological stories from Ovid; Roman History from Livy

Latin 3--Mythological stories from Ovid (not used in 2); Heroes and legends (Ovid, Livy)

Latin 4--Roman Games; Entertainment; Roman Virtues (Seneca, Cicero et al); selections from Harrius Potter

This past year, we did the same, and offer the following:

Latin 1--Mythological stories based on high frequency vocabulary; novella: Pluto: Fabula Amoris; Roman legend/ history focused on stories from the Aeneid and Caesar; Novella: Magus Mirabilis--the Wizard of Oz.

Latin 2--Roman Comedy based on Plautus; Roman War based on Caesar; Roman Heroes based on Livy, Roman women based on various authors; Novella: Camilla

Latin 3--Roman History based on Livy; Roman love stories based on Ovid; The Druids from Caesar; Roman War based on the Pro Caelio of Cicero et al.

Latin 4--Roman Games; Entertainment; Roman Virtues (Seneca, Cicero et al); Novella: Itinera Petri; selections from Harrius Potter; Roman virtures traced all the way through the year as a common sub-theme.  List of 16 virtues chosen from Latin literature with Cicero being the predominate source along with Seneca and Quintilian.  

This spring (2016) we surveyed students again.  Our surveys continue to have the basic list we started with, but now with novellas in hand, we can make those a part of what we offer.  So, we asked current Latin 1 students about their Latin 2 year which novella they would like to read:

Ille Hobbitus (and embedded version of some chapters)

Eurydice: Fabula Amoris (to be written this summer)

Itinera Petri

Camilla (on women and war) currently being written

Other topics from them to consider

Under Science:

Fantastical people (Pliny)

Geography and race (various authors and vocabulary driven)

Medicine

Fantastical creatures (Pliny)

Under War:

Hannibal vs. Rome (Livy)

Boudicca vs. Rome

Alexander the Great

Octavian vs. Marc Antony

Under Love:

Hector and Andromache

Abelard and Heloise

Jason and Medea

Claudius and Messalina

From these, you can see that our original list of items is present, but we are getting better at identifying what we are ready to work with.  If you knew us you would recognize among the authors we are working with the contents of our doctoral dissertations and masters theses, our many years of coursework and teaching experiences.  In other words, we are largely working with what we know or have the time to explore.  

As has become our custom, the 5 of us will gather this summer to plot out exactly what we are doing with the surveyed topics, authors and materials.  We are anticipating the novellas of others to come out soon which will enrich our possibilities as well.  Each year that we do this, we have the repository of the previous year’s work, so in some cases there is less work to do from scratch.  That allows us to edit, refine and add to existing materials.  

I want to add this one note which may be sub-titled program promotion, politics and/or professional development.  At every opportunity, we try to let our administrators and district leaders know what we are doing, why, and with what results.  We need them to support this work.  What we are doing is working with all kinds of learners, and we need it to be supported and celebrated.  At the same time, we look for every conference opportunity to share what we are doing.  As I suggested in the opening of this post, we believe that the future of Latin depends on this kind of creative, collaborative work, and we need and want more Latin teachers involved in doing this kind of things as well--not to jump on our bandwagon, but to ensure that Latin thrives and that it is no longer the domain of elite learners.  I wrote this blog post because of private requests to share how we plan this sort of curriculum.  I can no longer respond to the number of requests that I and the others on our team receive privately, but why should these be private conversation, anyway?  I encourage everyone doing this sort of work to blog, present, share, collaborate, and make sure your local administrators and leaders know what you are doing, and that it’s a national movement.  

Pluto: Fabula Amoris - The Good, The Bad, The Update

Back in October, Rachel and I announced our first publication as both authors and publishers of Pomegranate Beginnings Publishing. Since then, we've continued teaching and are both working on future publications to share.

I used Pluto: fabula amoris with my Latin I students from October to December of this school year. Both the midterm and final exam focused on this text and we incorporated a variety of activities to help students not only read and understand the story but to also enjoy it.

After teaching the novella and testing out resources, I am finally ready to share the Pluto: fabula amoris Teacher's Guide. It is available online for free and in print for those who'd prefer it in print from both Create Space and Amazon.com.

The Teacher's Guide includes lots of notes and items that teachers may find useful while teaching with Pluto: fabula amoris; but it is not exhaustive. There are plenty of other ways to teach with Pluto: fabula amoris. The guide is meant to assist and guide, but not dictate the way you use the text.

This has been quite a journey with our first book and we are so thankful to all of the people who helped us get there. I am also thankful to my colleague, and father Robert Patrick for working with me to teach this novella this fall and give me honest feedback on what was and wasn't working. I also want to publicly thank Robert Patrick, Keith Toda, Rachel Ash, and Alina Filepescu for allowing me to publish links to their blogs and use them for activity inspiration. From all this I developed what I wanted for the Teacher's Guide.

Teacher's Guide Cover

I believe the guide is self explanatory in that I tried to detail as much as possible, but I do want to preview it by giving a list of the types of things you can find:

1. grammar/vocabulary usage notes
2. outside culture resources
3. culture questions to consider
4. word clouds for each chapter
5. images for each chapter
6. reading guides for each chapter
7. a variety of other activities for the chapters
8. a list of activity resources you can use to make more activities
9. audio readings for each chapter (nota bene: we've tried to make the downloadable, but at the time this is not available through our means. I will update if this changes.)

Teaching a Novella

I want to spend some time talking about my experience teaching with this novella. I used it with my Latin I students after they'd had about 2 and a half months of Latin study. 

Struggles

I encountered many struggles when deciding to and while teaching my novella. The first was the lack of materials available on teaching with a novella. There are some out there, mainly geared towards modern language novellas, but overall the resources and ideas were lacking. I felt completely on my own and it was overwhelming. 

Additionally, I didn't want the materials I created to be worksheet heavy or made to feel like kids were doing book reports. Many of the resources I was able to look at involved something akin to a reading report for each chapter or were the same activities and worksheets for each chapter. This is not a criticism of others' work, but rather an explanation of where I drew from. 

The Reading Guides

I ultimately decided, based on what I was seeing for other languages and English courses, to make a reading guide for each chapter that would focus on basic vocabulary, and comprehension. None of the guides require paragraphs or reports, but try to make use of various activities to form different assessments. The first section on each guide allowed students to take vocabulary notes when they were reading or during our activities. The second always involved some form of drawing. I included:

• comic strips
• single scenes
• character cards
• dictatio/pictatio

The final piece involved some variety of comprehension activities:

• Questions in Latin on basic comprehension
• Questions in English on basic comprehension
• False statements in Latin
• Questions in English asking for deeper discussion on the culture themes of the text. 

Creating the guides this way kept them compelling for students and easy to work with and grade. Each one could be used for different standards in grading as well and highlighted different skills. 

The Structure of Each "Chapter Unit"

Before reading each chapter, I would prepare students for things in a certain way. While each unit was comprised of the same or nearly the same ideas, each activity varied. 

Introduction and Vocabulary 

• Culture introduction (activity or discussion)
• Teach new vocabulary: movie short, TPR, TPRS, dictatio, etc.
• Reinforce new vocabulary: same conversation, Publius Publicanus, audio activity

Reading 

• Silent Reading and new vocabulary discussion
• Reading Activity: Reading Option A, Read, Discuss, and Draw

Post Reading

• Follow up Culture discussion (sometimes)
• Comprehension activity: dramatic tableaux, False statements, comprehension questions, character cards, audio activity, etc. 
• Final listening of audio from chapter for enjoyment
• Timed Write

Assessment

We assessed every 1-2 chapters depending on their length and whether we thought the students were ready. We made the assessments from material we'd done in class. I made the decision not to include the assessments in the teacher's guide. I didn't want teachers to feel like the tests were mandatory for teaching the novella and I didn't want teachers to feel restricted and like they had to "teach to the test". Rather, I wanted to encourage teachers to make their own tests match the way they teach. I am happy, however, to answer any questions regarding my assessments or the content of them. I will, however, lay out a variety of ways we assessed students. 

1. Vocabulary Assessment: varied, but included giving Latin to English as well as translating sentences. Sometimes, it asked students to pick 5 of 10 words and draw a picture to define. 
2. Comprehension Assessment: usually included questions in English about the text and/or false statements from the text. 
3. Culture Assessment: we really stuck to discussions on this, basing our assessment on students' discussion and answers given in class. 
4. Audio Assessment: we used this on our midterm and final (same link as given in introduction); but included descriptions of characters and students were to define who was being described. We always practised this in class before putting it on an assessment.

Conclusions

Feedback and Thoughts on this Method

Students responded well to these activities and enjoyed the book. They did well on the assessments and appreciated how we as teachers listened to their wants and needs. 

Resources:

• Miriam's presentation for the Georgia Classical Association on Teaching with a Novella
• Miriam's presentation for the Foreign Language Association of Georgia on Writing in the CI classroom
• Rachel's presentation for the Foreign Language Association of Georgia on Untextbooking

Art Dating

This week, I took my ones down to our local school's art show and we spent the period writing about and talking about art. This semester, we've learned a lot of vocabulary that describes things we experience and see, so this was a great opportunity to bring out these words again and dive deeper into our understanding. The kids really enjoyed the activity and we got lots of really good feedback. We were also able to take a standards grade for interaction and descriptions.

The other aspect of this time of year is that we are surrounded by testing. I might be missing any number of students any day from here on out and they may be missing me, if I am helping with testing.

The activity below is one I came up with to help get us back to our story Magus Mirabilis Oz and also to give students a relatively easy activity to get back into the swing of things after testing and spring break. I am calling it Art Dating.

Set Up

The set up required a bit of work from me, but that is because I was very particular about wanting to represent as many of my students as possible in the art work and also to make sure the images were rich with our vocabulary. I chose 15 images that represent various parts of the story The Wizard of Oz. I did a basic image search on Google, but ultimately pulled from artistic interpretations, book illustrations, stills from movies, photos from plays, anything I could find.* When it was all said and done, we had images that represented a variety of students, art styles, emotions, and parts of the story. 

I would say that making the most of a Google search is key here. To give you an example of the things I searched to find a variety of images:

Wizard of Oz, Wizard of Oz play, Wizard of Oz movie, The Wiz movie, The Wiz TV, Wizard of Oz 16th century China, Scarecrow in Oz, Lion in Oz, Wizard of Oz book, Wizard of Oz art, Wizard of Oz artwork, Dorothy and Scarecrow, Yellow Brick Road, The Land of Oz, Wicked Witch of the West, Glinda the Good Witch, 

I put all the images into a presentation and set it to rotate automatically every 15 seconds. 

* Please be aware that images I am using are not copyrighted to me and were only used in my classroom for this activity. I give full credit to those to whom the images belong. 

Procedure

Students looked at the scrolling images while I went over the rules so they could get a head start.

1. Pick an image. 
2. Describe the image as best as you can in Latin (5 min)
3. Trade papers.
4. Read their description and add to it. Make it the best description possible. Make it as clear as possible (6 min)
5. Repeat 3-4 as many times as you want in the class always getting a new paper. 
6. Trade one more time.
7. Read this final description and do your best to recreate it on a piece of paper. 

(I recommend playing some music during this to keep from a silent room.)

Standards

If you are doing Standards Based Grading, this kind of activity is great to pull an assessment from for a few standards I can see:

• writing standards - comfort with vocabulary, fluency, accuracy to image, etc. (you'll need names for each writing section on this one)
• comprehension standards - how well did they relate the description by their new image? did they get the shapes and colours accurately? How clear was their image?

Reflection

I learned a lot about this activity, as we all do I think, from my first period. There are a few things I changed through the day to make it clearer to my students, but also to elicit the kind of activity I wanted:

• Chit Chat - This activity really must be void of it until the colouring. If they are talking, they lose writing time, and they get an "easy way out" of finding the image. The same really goes for cell phones. Students who had cell phones out were distracted and felt like they were rushed. This required a few reminders. The music certainly helped because it got rid of the awkward silence.
• The NEED to be correct - Kids get really worried about getting things correct. The affective filter went up slightly when they were worried that they'd lose "points" or get a lower grade for not guessing the image correctly. When they realised they'd be creating their own images, the filter went down and they calmed down a little. I would make sure to reiterate this throughout the activity.
• Regular Time Warnings - Make sure to give a 2 or 1 minute warning so kids don't get caught off guard when the time is called.
• Variety - The students appreciated the variety of images: they connected a lot of ways: life representation, style of art, colour scheme, characters, animals, etc.
• Ease of Writing - This is my own observation and not something the kids told me. The students had an easy time writing. They were nervous, but once they picked/found an image, they wrote immediately. They didn't struggle with the writing, they just did it.

Examples

Below are some samples of work. The slideshow will rotate through repeatedly!

Report from the Classroom: Same Conversation

This activity is a spin off of what Keith Toda has written about here:

Part I 

Part II

Part III

Here are my simple instructions for same conversation.

I've done this activity with my students before and it always has its ups and downs. This year, my fellow Latin I teacher, Dr. Robert Patrick, and I came up with some news ways to do this and have had some great success.

Director

In the past I've done this with students, allowing them to call out various things. This year, however, we wanted a focus on Latin and using Latin as much as possible, even in Latin I. So, Dr. Patrick and I brainstormed this list of ways to do a same conversation script in Latin. The list includes things like "with hate" and "with love", as well as things like "loudly", "sadly", and even has some animals like "as frogs", "as cats", etc. 

This list seems to be a really useful way to do this because it keeps offensive ones out of the mix and it keeps students from picking things that are too hard. Plus, they seem to like the randomness of the list. By far, the class favourites are:

• ut pirati - as pirates
• ut infantes - as babies
• magna voce - in a loud voice
• susurrante - whispering
• amore - with love

Script and Process

For the lesson today, we used this script:

I want to pause and point a few things about script:

1. These words are pertinent to our reading. We are beginning to read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in Latin. Chapter 1 takes place on a farm. 
2. These words are not high frequency words in Latin. And yet, we are doing them. These words are highly compelling to students. Students love being able to talk about the world around them and everyone has a favourite animal, so these words become important and high frequency to our students when the connect and it is compelling. 
3. These words serve another important purpose. In Latin, the words for animal sounds are examples of onomatopoeia; that is, when said they make a sound. (My students call it a sound in a word). By doing this now, they can listen for and look for these things in the future and rhetorical devices are an important part of vertical instruction towards upper level Latin and AP, as well as being very useful outside the classroom. 

We did each scene separately and had different actors for each. They got to do it once normally and once with direction. Then, we'd sing the appropriate verse. This took up half, if not more, of the period, and we could have continued if the bell hadn't rung. 

Findings:

• Already the majority of kids like this game. There are some classes where it is difficult to get volunteers, but even in those classes, they still enjoy watching the scenes. 
• In one class, they even gave the song a beat, which made it extra fun. 
• Because the nursery rhyme is so well known in these parts, and the song itself is so repetitive, kids will learn these words very quickly. 
• This work is VERY compelling for students. They love it! 

Extra Resources:

Minimus Website - shows animals and sounds

Do you do same conversation? Have you ever tried it to teach words like these? How did it go?

The Glorious Moment - They are Hooked!

In August Rachel began the year with an adapted novella for her Latin II classes. I also teach one class of Latin II, so I was able to follow along with her and experience much of the same things she did.

Now, in Latin I, we are reading the original Latin novella Pluto: fabula amoris. It is different from Rachel's because it is not a play, but rather a narration, told from people's point of view. I am building teachers' resources as I teach the novel (which will be offered through PBP later this year) and I am learning some things as I go. I borrowed from Rachel's experience, along with the plethora of research she and I did in the hopes of finding activities and suggestions for teaching a novella in a second language. I also am keeping notes on things I see in my students as well.

Building To It

We started the year using edited version of mythological stories Rachel wrote last year. They covered the beginning of the world, the birth of the gods, and introduced us to important characters like Jupiter, Juno, etc. Students were exposed to vocabulary based on frequency lists and the 50 Most Important Verbs list. As we read, the length of the readings increased slightly, but were still fairly short. We also discussed culture and mythology as well as the implications of it. 

I purposefully made sure that we'd learned most of the words in the novella by the time we read it. My intention was to spend a little time at the beginning of chapters filling in words, but by the time we got to the chapters with the action, just be reading with the class. 

Basic Structure

I will post more on this when I discuss the details of the teachers' resources for the book, but we've settled into a general schedule for things in which activities may vary or may be options for teachers and students:

Introduction and Vocabulary Instruction

This beginning section can include a variety of things and may be as simple as 5-10 minutes before reading or, in some cases, an entire day or week before reading. Here are some of the things we've done for this:

• Culture videos, presentations, and discussions - Some of these will be included in the teachers' resources, others are readily available on the internet. I used a variety of videos, and artwork from various eras to introduce our two main characters and discuss perceptions of them, prior to reading. I also used this opportunity to pose questions that students have been considering as we read. Some will have definite answers in the book; others are open to interpretation. 
• Activities with Vocabulary - You can see more details of the things I typically do here. This activity greatly varied in time depending on how far into the story we were and how many words needed to be introduced. Today, for example, we had two new words, so I introduced those words, we took brief notes, and then I circled them a little during our reading. At the beginning of the book, when we'd have 5-8 new words, I'd take a week or so to teach new words and circle.

Reading and Comprehension

I am including any and all activities that we use to ensure comprehension while reading in this section. Here is a link to some of the regular activities we use. Typically, I space these things out like this:

• Dictatio - I only do this for some chapters. Since they were short, I did not want to do one every time. These activities are very useful, but only if done once in a while. They are tedious and students tire of them very quickly.
• Reading and Discussion - This can take many forms. I try to alternate between them to keep things moving and give students lots of ways to demonstrate their understanding. This usually takes between 1-2 days to do, depending on the activity. 
• Comprehension Checks - These activities reinforce the reading, help me see just how much students understand on their own, and provide support for students who need more. These can be whole class activities (like the seek and find activity we're doing today - Rachel will post on this later), group activities (like musical/popcorn reading) or individual (use of the reading guides, comic strips, etc.)

Follow Up

One of my first presentations that I gave to my colleagues was on teaching culture in the target language. Since then, I've tried as much as I can to make culture applicable to students and keep as much as I can in the target language. The same holds true when I consider teaching culture in my novella. So far, I've been keeping a list of things students ask questions about and things that I want to teach. I will discuss this in more detail when I finish the teachers' resources, but for now, we've done a variety of activities including:

• Artwork Discussions - Latin and English - 
• Character Analysis - Latin and English -
• Reflection on Products, Perspectives, and Practices  - Mostly English - Students write, or discuss, in English the products, perspectives, and practices of Roman life based on our readings.
• Discovery of Traditions (Practices) - Mostly Latin - I am writing a follow up post on this for the teachers resources; essentially I am using dictations, picture vocabulary, and manipulatives to teach culture traditions. 
• Audio Recordings - Latin - As we've posted before here and here, we're beginning to build students' listening skills with audio activities. We pair these with text, an opportunity to take notes and discuss, and, often, artwork. 

Conclusions

I am still working on teaching this novella and I find myself trying to come up with new ways to teach vocabulary and the text so the kids don't get bored. What I've found, however, is that a compelling text that is in their range keeps them from getting bored. We are now in the section of the text where actions are occurring and things are getting interesting. Students are asking to know what happens next, who people are, why they are doing what they are doing. They want to know when we'll see certain characters again and what people are thinking. They are analysing on their own, without little to no guidance from me and, as I teach this, I am finding their interests and aspects of history and culture that go with this novella that I otherwise wouldn't have thought of. 

Do you have success teaching a novella? Do you have any suggestions for my class? Let us know in the comments!

PBP announcing: Plutonis et Petri Book Review Promotion!

Check out our new promotion and maybe win a couple of books!

First, read the free preview versions of each book here. Then follow the directions below to enter the contest.

Announcing! Pluto: fabula amoris

Salvete! Hola! Bonjour! Assalam wa Aleikum! Anyeonghaseyo! Shalom! Guten Morgen! Caio!  (and that about exhausts the languages I can say hello in easily and confidently) Rachel and I wanted to take this opportunity to announce, rather excitedly I might add, the publishing of our first Latin novella - Pluto: fabula amoris (from Amazon and Create Space).

I mean for this to be a short announcement post, as I will follow in a few months with a more detailed post and some teacher's resources, but there are a few things I'd like to point out on behalf of Rachel and myself.

This project has been a long time dream of both Rachel's and mine and we are so excited to get to share it with you. In the process of publishing, Rachel and I also decided to take the leap and add our name as publishers. We are officially opening Pomegranate Beginnings Publishing for business.

We've added a page to the blog discussing the novella a little more as well as Pomegranate Beginnings' other upcoming resources. You'll also notice an about us page with a specific contact form.

When we published, Rachel and I were hopeful to receive support, but I can safely say that both she and I are so thankful for all the support and congratulations we've received from, not just the Latin community, but from the teaching community as a whole. So, from the bottom of our hearts, Thank you! Thank you for reading, sharing, and responding. Thank you for letting us succeed and fail in front of you! :) Maximas gratias vobis agimus!

Some Bumps on the Road to Teaching a Novella

I have never taught a novella before. Okay, correction, I've taught novellas and novels in Language Arts (mostly in students' native languages), but I've never taught a Latin novella before.

Because I've never had one.

There's a plethora of Latin out there--endless tomes--and there are some (by no means a plethora) Latin adaptations of modern materials, so it would seem like I should have taught a novella before. However, none of those materials are good for beginning students, and even though thanks to embedded readings and comprehensible strategies I'm using authentic works, they are short passages and sections of larger works, not extensive in nature.

Needless to say, there have been a few false starts, and I can't even guarantee that I'm on the right path even now, but here's things I have tried and what I'm currently trying:

Groups decoding with reading aloud after

The very first thing I tried was to have students in groups translate (aloud, not written) the first scene of my novella (technically a play, but at 37 pages, it counts as a short novel) together and, once they had worked out the meaning, I read the scene aloud to them with emotion, since it is a play and therefore meant to be heard.

Pros: Students were tackling longer readings than they ever had in Latin I. There was laughter (good, because the play is a comedy) and students generally had a good idea of what the main struggle between the characters was.

Cons: While students had a good idea of the basic plot and struggle, they missed a lot of the detail and did not gain the level of review and reading fluency I was looking for.

Groups decoding with whole-class review after

Because I was worried about the level of comprehension after the first scene, I moved on to doing a whole-class review after students translated in groups. I simply went through lines, clarified meanings, and made sure that the play-by-play was perfectly understood.

Pros: Students knew what it said, if they could stay focused the entire time I talked. There was laughter (but not much).

Cons: It just seemed flat. It seemed to ruin the scene, honestly, and the scene became less enjoyable for all of us. In addition, I felt the comedy was getting lost.

Reading to the class with circling

Instead of letting students work their way through a recent scene first, I read the scene to them, worked them through the meanings of every line, asked questions about every line for clarification, and then discussed cultural necessities to help students understand the situation and humor.

Pros: Despite having each line talked into the ground, students seemed to enjoy this scene more. We even played VINCO (inspired by Martina Bex's strip bingo post, but regular bingo boxes that were marked off as we progressed through the scene) during the scene and some students forgot to mark off vocabulary because they were so involved in the story. Helping them find that humor angle and helping them understand the lines very thoroughly (and acting my heart out as an ugly-crying-unreasonably-unhappy Adulescens) really made the experience much more enjoyable for both myself and my students--while they had a secondary task (VINCO).

Cons: Without the secondary task (we didn't finish the first day and I didn't want to break out the VINCO cards for just a quarter of the scene), this began to fall flat. Also, my throat very sincerely hurts because booming through that scene so repeatedly after only a week and a half back to work did a number on it.

What I think I'm learning:

1. Students are dealing with longer readings so much more positively than they did last year and that is the only kind of reading they are doing. I have three guesses as to why:
1. They haven't been in class since last year and have forgotten the average length of the stories.
2. When they see 37 pages, any time I'm just focusing on two pages seems like a small amount.
3. The scenes are all based on review vocabulary, so perhaps there's just ease in the reading that keeps them from worrying about the length.
2. A secondary focus is helpful.
3. Cultural context is a must. They need to know that it's extra funny for a slave to talk back to his master in Ancient Rome and that crying incessantly over a girl is very unmasculine especially when most marriages are arranged and love is not a normal life goal.
4. I naturally think in terms of physical comedy (competitive speech student here) and forget that my students probably don't. I need to help them fill that gap.

What I'm doing next:

After I finish reviewing the current scene (we're doing a read, draw, and discuss of the scene--a description is included in Miriam's post over reading activities), I am considering setting up jigsaw experts: students in groups work to really know a section of the scene, then are remixed into groups so that each group has experts for every section of the scene. I'll do an updated blog to report how things progress!