Teaching Digitally as an Adventure (Part 3)

It's that time again! When I realize I have postponed posting too long and now have a lot to update--but less than I should because honestly I felt a little lost off and on recently. 

I think that's okay.

I think this year, if we don't treat ourselves with grace, we are going to implode.

So I don't have as much, but I did create a couple of new things and I'm going to continue to share all my stories with you because..I don't know what might or might not inspire and if what I have can help someone, then I want it to be out there!

I changed the organization this time because it has been so long that I just figured it would be easier to wade through the things I have made that way.

The Story So Far
Here is the story of Andromeda so far. I have illustrated parts 1-3 and not part 4. There are definitely going to be mistakes because sometimes I am throwing this thing together at the last minute. But I am excited to be working on this thing.

1. Andromeda Prima (illustrated Google Slide) (text)
2. Andromeda Secunda (illustrated Google Slide) (text)
3. Andromeda Tertia (illustrated Google Slide) (text)

Vocabulary Activities

1. Match Cards (and template) I made a board using Google Slides that is based on the Memory 
   
   card game. The basic set up is simple: they have "cards" that they move, and below each is a picture or word. They are to match the Latin words to their meanings, either as pictures or English words. Setting up the board was a little more complex because I wanted them to be able to work independently of me and I wanted each student or group of students to be able to progress at their own pace. So I designed this so that you can set up three different memory boards and the students can change to a new board as soon as they finish the old one! To edit the boards does take a little finessing, since you are going to create a background that you then add to one of the master layouts, but I have included a video below to help you out. This game is best used shared with all students able to edit the same Google Slides.
2. Vocabulary Categories I made a simple template for students to organize the vocabulary we
   
   were working on into categories that can be used in various ways. You can leave it as a basic exercise in thinking more deeply about the vocabulary itself or you can make it a competition (one I learned from my friend Patrick Yaggy): If students hit on the same category, they get points for any vocabulary words they used that no one else did in that category; if they come up with a completely unique category, they get points for all the words in that category. This template is ready to use! If you want, you can edit the Instructions in the master view and other parts, etc., to be in your target language. This activity is best used in Google Class as a copy for each student.
3. Vocabulary Drawings This is a mashup of Keith Toda's Vocabulary Olympics and my Read, Draw, and Discuss. Basically, using whiteboard.fi (thanks, Meredith White!), I gave students
   
   nonsense sentences to draw on whiteboards that only I could see, then I would clip two images per sentence, put them on a slide, and discuss them with the class to review the sentence and the vocabulary. This is easy to prep: put sentences that will create fun images on Google slides that also use the vocabulary you want to focus on. This activity is best used shared with all students able to view the same Google Slides.

Reinforcing the Story

1. SNAP (and template) I made a new game! I can't help myself. I get bored with old games. This
   
   one is meant to be a replacement for Slap Jack, which I created last year to be a more accessible version of Flyswatter. The basic idea is that I put sentences that describe pictures--some from the story and some vocabulary-based pictures--on "cards" that I could read aloud and show students, and I put the pictures in groups, lumped together in order so that students can self-select what level of difficulty they are playing at. To help explain game play and game setup, I have created a video below! This template is easy to edit for your class needs by just changing out the pictures and sentences. This game is best used shared with all students able to edit the same Google Slides.
2. Class-Sourced Video I just learned about Screencastify Submit so I of course immediately created an activity for it. This is not an especially deep concept. Students each are assigned a sentence of a story we've been studying. They create a video using the link to Screencastify Submit that I provide. Their videos end up in a folder together, then I put all the videos in Screencastify's video editor and made it into one video that we watched as a class! voila! 
3. Quis Dixit The last story-related thing for this post will be Quis Dixit, inspired by an activity
   
   John Foulk made where students chose which sentence went with a picture. I wanted to dig a little deeper into their character knowledge since we're three stories in, so I gave students either direct quotes from the stories or quotes that could have been said by characters. I also used images of the characters as the background, and on each slide, students were to match the statements to the correct characters. The activity is modified similarly to other activities such as SNAP and Match Cards: go into the Master View and to change out the character images and names (I have them grouped--you can ungroup them with a right click), then in regular view you can change out the quotes all you want. This activity is best used in Google Class as a copy for each student.

Culture: Connecting to the Modern World

I was thinking about how little choice Andromeda has in anything that happens to her in this entire story and that made me start singing some stuff from SiX: The Musical so then all the stuff below happened.

1. Letter from Catherine Parr Students read this for independent work one afternoon. It is just an excerpt from the song "I Don't Need Your Love" put on a pretty background. I put this on Google Classroom as a material to view.
2. Exploring Catherine Parr I had students use this as a guide for discussion. We broke into discussion groups via breakout rooms in Zoom and in class. Students were expected to fill out the form with their answers individually. Between each boxed "breakout" we reconvened as a class to discuss their answers to the questions. We also watched the song in context on youtube and therefore got the entire song that way. I put this on Google Classroom as a copy for each student.
3. Gallery of Choice (and template) After we did the class discussion, I had students take the final
   
   question of the discussion and enter it into a Google question on Google classroom. I used those answers to fill frames in my gallery so students could explore each other's ideas about other modern stories with a similar theme. We then were able to discuss these as a class. I also got a new book to read! This is not too hard to set up and personalize, but to make sure I made a video for you below. This is best offered to students to view on their own at their own pace.

Videos

Now, for the best clarity for a few items, I thought it was most prudent to offer some videos. (I also may have been reading some Jane Austen recently so my vernacular may be a little affected.)

Match Cards

SNAP

Gallery of Choice

That is everything I am going to put into this one humongous post! I hope you find something helpful in it! Let me know if you use something in it or if you have questions! And good luck. We all need it right now.

Want more ideas? Check out my previous posts here:

Teaching Digitally as an Adventure Part 2

Teaching Digitally as an Adventure Part 1

Posts by others:

Teaching Virtually: A TPR Alternative by Miriam Patrick

Todally Comprehensible Latin Keith's blog has been basically completely focused on online teaching activities.

Teaching Virtually: A TPR alternative

 This year I am teaching Latin I again. I am so excited, but we are starting, if briefly, online. Total Physical Response (TPR) is still part of our plans, but we need to be creative. A few realities:

1. We cannot, in any way, see 30+ videos all at once to ensure that students are hearing and understanding us. 
2. Some students may not have their video on (a point for another time). 
3. We are using web cams and it will be difficult to get them to film us doing actions. 
4. Gauging comprehension is going to be... interesting. To say the least. 

I am collaborating with two colleagues this year for Latin I: Bob Patrick and Liz Davidson and we've been meeting regularly to figure out what we will do. Yesterday we met to discuss the plans for next week and Bob came in with six words: canis, leo, serpens and currere, ire + ad, stare*. He said that his thought was that these six words would be easy to work with and do some TPR in some way. 

We discussed the idea of an asynchronous scavenger hunt where we'd give commands in Latin and students would use picture or video evidence to show them doing the actions. This excites us because it gets kids moving, involves their personal lives and choices in class, and requires movement, rather than sitting in front of a PC all day. 

But, the question remained. How do we establish meaning? How do we provide enough comprehensible and compelling input BEFORE the TPR? 

So, we added to the list. Those six words are our target words, or the words we are going to require. We came up with approximately nine more to be icing words... BUT... here's the kicker --> ALL the words came from our county vocabulary list! This means that even those these words are not targeted now, they will be later and, by then, the kids will already have acquired them at least somewhat! We added words like pulcher, laetus, iratus, medius, anxius, silva, and via+.

Bob had talked about these six words being perfect for an action story. So, we took a few minutes and wrote three different stories, each focusing on a specific animal. The word list we'd come up with were the only words we wanted to use and, while 1-2 more words were needed, they still fit. 

What came out of this work were three very simple stories and from that a natural order (which we did not plan) to those stories. First, our students will read my story, the story of a canis who is in the road, but wants to be in the forest with the lion and the snak. Second, our students will read Liz's story, the story of the serpens who is sad that he cannot run, but whom the dog finds beautiful. Third, our students will read Bob's story, the story of the leo who is already friends with the dog, but is afraid of the snake. The dog connects the two and they all become friends. Again, we did not plan our stories to connect in such a way, but the did naturally and that felt wonderful. 

Lastly, we finished our meeting by deciding that we'd each create a series of activities for our stories. As individual teachers we can choose which activities we like for each story, but all our students will be reading the same story. We also decided on a comprehension check for Friday. 

This is not the only way to collab, but I was so inspired by what happened naturally that I thought I'd share. I've boiled it down to 5 simple steps which I've shared below. :) 

* canis - dog, leo - lion, serpens - snake and currere - to run, ire + ad - to go to, stare - to stand still

+ pulcher - beautiful, laetus - happy, iratus - angry, medius - middle, anxius - worried, silva - forest, and via - road

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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

Slap Jack: A Small Group Alternative to Flyswatter

Almost every teacher has played a version of Flyswatter. If you haven't, it basically goes:

1. Project information on the board/screen.
2. Divide the class into two teams.
3. Give representatives from each team a flyswatter.
4. Have students hit the correct information with said flyswatters based on clues.
5. Hilarity ensues.

I have played this game with my students off and on for sixteen years. I generally have enjoyed it, and there have been some nice improvements on the game, such as Keith Toda's move toward pictures and sentences instead of just vocabulary.

However, as my classes have grown in size and, to be honest, changed in demographic from students who are super engaged in school to students who feel much less represented and are therefore largely disaffected with academia, I find that flyswatter leads to poor classroom management that, at best, means a bunch of students are sitting around not paying attention for large sections of class time and, at worst, means juggling student behavior while still trying to keep a semblance of a "fun review."

So, simply, I stopped using it. But I missed it.

I also wanted to do something that would allow students to self-select a difficulty level and provide a means of differentiation as my classes and those of my colleagues have grown more inclusive of students with learning differences.

Here's my solution: Slap Jack!

I took the images I would have used in a round of Flyswatter and made them into images I could cut out, then created a ppt with sentences to go with the images, and voila! A small-group version where all students are engaged.

Slap Jack

Preparation

1. Gather images and sentences you would like to use. I used images and sentences from some short vocabulary stories we had recently read in preparation for a myth we were about to read.
2. Divide the images into 4-5 groups. For this one, I made four groups. Mark the backs of the images with the number of their group so you can keep track. For example, if there are six images that will be called out first, they are in group 1 and need to have "1" written on the back of their pictures.
3. Make a powerpoint or Google slides that coordinates with the group numbers (without putting group numbers on it). So the first six sentences are all for group 1 images (I put the answers on the ppt as well), and the second six (or whatever number you set) are for group 2 images, etc.
4. Cut the images out and put them in envelopes marked with the group numbers. This is the most tedious part of preparation. I made ten sets of images so I could have nine groups and an emergency set.

Play

1. Put the ppt on the board and give students a chance to choose how hard to make their game. 1 envelope = easiest setting, 2 envelopes = medium, all envelopes = hardest. Make sure they know to keep the envelopes in order and that they need to open them and use them in order.
2. Have students take their chosen number of envelopes and put out the images face up between them all.
3. When the sentence goes on the board, say it out loud. The first student in each group to slap the right image gets to hold on to that image.
4. Whenever you finish a group, give time for setup for any groups who are doing one envelope at a time.
5. When you finish all the images, students count their images to find out who got the most points in each group. You can give prizes if you want to.

Cleanup

1. Cleanup is pretty easy--have students look at the numbers on the backs of the pictures and put them in the correct envelopes!

I wish I had taken some pictures but I was just caught up in the moment so I didn't. Sorry. What I can offer is the Google slides and document I made for the game we played earlier this year.

Google Slides

Pictures for the Slapping

Report from the field: My Daily Routine

Recently, I posted about Monday tips and tricks and included John Piazza's weekly schedule. Last week, John Foulk, my colleague and friend, posted about finding support for the CI classroom.

I want to further that discussion a bit and talk about my daily schedule. I am going to skip my history with it... although, if you are interested in it you can check out our subscription service and our recent summer reflection series where I discuss in length.

My Schedule

My schedule this year is a little different in that last year and the previous year (when I started this), I had one prep. This year, as I am in charge of Latin IV (and we have 2 classes of Latin IV), I am also teaching one class of Latin II and two classes of Latin I. This has created a need (for me) for regular routine. My IVs were already used to the way I do things by now, but the IIs and Is have never had me before and so this was brand new to them (in the way that I do it). 

Daily Breakdown - ALL CLASSES

There are a few things that I do with all my classes. Variations (or lack thereof) are highlighted in orange.

Telephone Ritual

I give credit to Robert Patrick for this routine. I used to do it as needed, but now it is the first thing we do every day. In Latin, we go through where our phones should be and where they shouldn't be. Of course, this looks a little different by level:

Latin IV

These students know this by now and this serves merely as a reminder. We go through this quickly. 

Latin II

These students are used to it, but still need regular reminders. We go through it together, saying the words at the same time. 

Latin I

For these students, what I am asking is new. We go through each one and we do hand signals to show that we are ready for class. 

Date

I do the date in Latin in every class, no matter what. It is done the same way in every class, but in my lower levels I sometimes break in English to make sure we understand or to ask follow up questions. I do not do the old Roman calendar. I see its benefits, but find it more useful to my students today that they use our calendar for the date. 

I don't vary this. We do it the same way every time because I want my students to feel this routine so that when I'm not here or when we do timed writes, they can do it on their own with little thought. 

Weather

We do the weather every day in my class. Last year I did not vary how we did it, but took advantage of the.... interesting weather we had: an eclipse, a hurricane, ice, snow, etc. But, this year... things have been relatively... stagnant, with the exception of rain, so I've gotten creative. Here are some variations I've done with a brief follow up on each. 

1. with pictures - I started this way in August for my ones, who had never done this before. This was a way to provide some circling and give them visual input. My upper level also benefited from this. Each day I added a new picture. The first day was just the sun. The second day was the sun and clouds. The third day added hot and cold. The fourth day added wind, and so on. This led into a few days of slides with just the questions, no pictures on them. 
2. with seasons - we are smack in the middle of changing seasons. In one month, fall officially begins (yay sweater and chili season). Most of my students are tired of the heat and the humidity and are hoping for some relief. This provided an opportunity to put up the seasons and discuss them and their differences. Day 1 included the change from summer to fall. Day 2 included all four seasons and a discussion of who liked what. Day 3 (tomorrow for me) will include all four seasons and the typical weather one finds in each season. 
3. with the world - This may be one of my favourite ways to do weather right now. Here in Georgia, we are getting two types of weather: hot and sunny... and hot and humid... It gets boring. So, I picked some other kinds of weather (tornadoes, hurricanes, snow, monsoon, flood, lightning, etc.) and we talk about where in the world those things are happening. We've talked about Hurricane Lane, snow in the mountains in South America and Europe, lightning in Germany and Italy, and dust storms in Arizona. 

Daily Breakdown - Some classes Some Days

There are a few other things I do, but they don't happen every day or in every class. I've highlighted class specifics in blue and day specifics in green. Variations appear in orange. 

Nuntium - News

I only do the news in Latin II and IV. Originally, I had only intended to do it in Latin IV, but recently I accidentally showed the IIs the slide and they got really excited.... so now we do the news in Latin II as well. We do a news item on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. I choose news items that I hear on my way in on the radio or that I have heard about recently. This year alone we've talked about Hurricane Lane, a robbery of a lemonade stand in North Carolina, the fire in California, and Senator John McCain's death. Typically I will  I do it a bit differently in these classes:

1. Latin IV - This is done entirely in Latin. I usually try to include the grammar topics we are covering as well to provide an in context example. We will discuss as needed and sometimes we get into a debate or discussion about a variety of things. 
2. Latin II - This is done part in Latin and part in English. Mostly my goal is to get them understanding things in Latin about our current world. 

Grammar Topics

This is only in my Latin IV class. They are ready to receive a bit of explicit grammar instruction, so on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we spend about 5-10 minutes discussing a topic. Last year, students covered all the declensions of nouns and all 7 cases. We also discussed sentence structure and poetry. This year, we've covered: ablative absolutes, fear clauses, ablative of time when, accusative of duration of time, ablative of description, subjunctive uses. However I should state that all of these things are not new. We've been using them in class as needed since day 1 of Latin I. In their first week of Latin I students saw an indirect statement. In Latin II we used the ablative repeatedly (including ablative absolutes) and worked with the supine. It is a common misconception that teachers who use CI do not use/teach grammar. We use grammar every day and our students see (often considered) complex grammar structures before their traditional class counterparts, however we don't explicitly talk about it until the students are ready. 

Free Voluntary Reading

I promise I am working on a post about how I do this. In fact, it should come out some time in October! But... in the meanwhile. I do free voluntary reading across the board, however it starts at different times of the year. Once we start it, we do it every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I've broken down how I do it (or plan to do it) below by level. 

1. Latin IV - These students have been doing this now for 3 years. They started reading this year in the first week. Right now (August 2018), they read on Mondays for 10 minutes, Wednesday for 12+ minutes, and on Fridays we hold a class "book club". We talk about what we are reading, what we like, and other things like this. 
2. Latin II - these students are in their first year of FVR with me. They started reading last week. Right now (August 2018), they read on Mondays for 5 minutes, Wednesdays for 5+ minutes, and on Fridays we hold a class "book club" (see above.)
3. Latin I - These students have not started FVR. They are still acquiring basics and I won't start FVR until probably January of next year (2019). When we start, we'll read on Mondays for 5 minutes, Wednesdays for 5+ minutes, and on Fridays we'll hold "book club" (see above). 

I posted a few weeks ago on the FVR project my IVS did. You can read it here. Be on the lookout in October for my post of posts on FVR!

Reflection

I am loving my daily routine right now. It keeps me accountable to (a) start class on time and (b) get us into the swing of Latin. Right now, my IVs are comfortable with 90%+ time in Latin. My IIs just experienced their first few days of 80%+ in Latin, and my ones are averaging about 50%+ in Latin right now. I credit this, in part, to my daily routine. It gets us speaking Latin right off the bat and sets clear expectations for class. If I don't have all the pieces ready, the kids know and they ask about it. 

This is something I will definitely continue doing and I am excited by some of the unique things my colleagues are coming up with! I'm hoping he'll post on it, but Keith has us doing things with "quot videtis" (how many do you see) and visual illusions as well as "quid hoc die accidit" what happened on this day. 

Do you have a daily routine? What is it like?

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!

Brain Dump Round Up - Miriam's list of activities

This morning I came to work knowing, in great detail, the things I wanted to work with, but at a complete blank of how to do it. The normal things I tend towards would not meet the purpose of what I wanted. So, after having a much needed cup of coffee, I started on a search on my favourite blogs to find an activity I could use. What I found were a few new activities and one that I am using today. Additionally, Rachel and I were speaking about some alternatives to the things we use for review/brain break vocabulary activities. I thought I'd take this information and round it all up for you all. So, without further ado, here is my list of favourite and newly discovered activities broken up into categories (and in no particular order). I want to honour what has been said, so I will only present 1-2 sentences where needed to clarify my thoughts or provide review.

Activities with Readings

1. Fan N Pick discussed by Martina Bex - I found this activity this morning and I cannot wait to give it a try! 
2. Story Tower discussed by Martina Bex - Also found this morning, this is the activity I ultimately decided to use. Look at my twitter for some pics later today! 
3. Story Wars discussed by Miriam Patrick, original from Diane Neubauer - I love this activity to spice up a reading! 
4. Picture Relay Races discussed by Rachel Ash 
5. Seek and Find discussed by Rachel Ash - I love the variations on this! 

Activities with Vocabulary

1. Draw, Discuss, and Read discussed by Miriam Patrick
2. In my hat described by Miriam Patrick - We haven't discussed this original activity as it is. There is a variation on this, the white elephant activity, which is linked below. 
3. White Elephant described by Rachel Ash and Justin Slocum Bailey
4. TPR in the First ten discussed by Miriam Patrick with resources from Latin Best Practices
5. One Sentences Stories discussed by Miriam Patrick and Two Sentence Horror Stories discussed by Rachel - both of these ideas were snagged from other places. My idea came from ideas for English/Literature classes and Rachel's idea came from a Reddit thread. 
6. One Word Picture discussed by Keith Toda
7. Movie Talks/Movie Shorts discussed by Miriam Patrick (secondary post)

Activities with Personalisation (PQA and untargeted types)

1. Discipulus Illustris (student interviews)  discussed by Miriam Patrick with links to Bryce Hedstrom's original ideas and other follow up posts. 
2. Free Voluntary Reading discussed by Miriam Patrick (expect an update post later this year)
3. Roll A Write discussed by Miriam Patrick

This list is by no means exhaustive and I am always searching for new ideas. Share them in the comments below! 

Dictation Follow Up - Quick Lesson Ideas

Rachel and I have posted quite a bit on dictations, and there are an almost infinite amount of ways to do them. My personal favourites are the QR code dictation and, believe it or not, a traditional dictation. I've always wondered about what to do as follow up for a dictation. Do you simply do it, collect it, and call it a day? What might some quick follow ups be to a dictation? Here are some ideas that I adapted from follow up reading activities to be quick checks for Dictations:

Student marks the image
being described

1. Partner Read - Typically, one might do this with a story and images that the teacher used to help tell the story. One partner reads each dictation sentence while the other partner points to the image being described. They then switch roles. This is a quick exercise that takes just a few minutes. 
2. Seek and Find A - Again, this is a follow up to a reading, and one can do any number of things with it. For our dictation, we did two activities. First, students cut out images that another student had drawn the previous day (they hadn't seen these particular images), then they matched each sentence to its image. 
3. Seek and Find B - The second thing we did, after everyone had put the images in order, was to scramble the images up and while I read the sentences out of order, each partner found the picture and held it up for me to see. It was an easy and quick formative assessment 



Latin II students put
sentences in order.

4. Story Listening - Another thing you might consider is doing a quick story listening session with the dictation. While you tell the story, you draw images on the board and label them. You can then save the image (I have a smart board, or you an take a picture of your work) and use it later for another story session, a timed write, or an assessment. 

Each of these activities was quite quick. The longest is story listening and that took 10-20 minutes, depending on what you wanted to do. Today, my Latin II classes did all four of these. 

How we did it today:

Set Up - What we did yesterday

1. Students completed a scrambled egg dictation with numbered sentences so they could know the order
2. Students drew images with each sentence

Follow Up - What we did today

1. I chose one student's drawings that were fairly simple and clear and scanned it into my

   

   A student clarifies which image he
   has chosen by matching it to
   a dictation sentence

   computer. I removed any signs of which picture was which. 
2. Students were put into pairs and given a set of these images. They cut each one out.
3. Seek and Find A
4. Partner Read
5. Seek and Find B
6. BRAIN BREAK
7. Story Listening

Final Thoughts:

This lesson was quick paced and met the needs of students. I could quickly see who knew what and who needed support. Students found it fun and engaging and most participated fully. All in all, I think it was a good way to review a dictation in new and quick ways. I did put a brain break into the lesson. I felt it was important for students to have this break and reset before doing the longer activity. 

What ways do you follow up with a dictation?

Guest Post: Pictura an Statua?

K.C. Kless is a CI-focused Latin teacher who is a fantastic innovator of classroom practices both technological and traditional. I asked him to write a post to share any of the activities he told me about at last summer's ACL Institute (one of the best parts is meeting teachers from all over the nation and just talking and sharing ideas).

First, let me say a hearty thank you to Rachel and Miriam for hosting my first blog post. I am very grateful for the community of CI teachers who blog, providing fresh activities, great insights & twists, and an incredible place to reflect & refresh.

Second, I do have a few other posts in the works - maybe so many that guest-posting would be a bit cumbersome. Hopefully, I will have my own blog in the new year. To get the news first, follow me on Twitter @klessk. (edit: He created the blog! Two CIceros)

Okay, now onto the activity - "Pictura an Statua?" In this activity, students in partners, trios, or groups of four work together to earn points with the teacher as the judge of their artwork. However, the competition should be light-hearted and the judge should be generous because the real fun is in the interpretation.

For each sentence you will read, a single student decides whether the teams draw the sentence on hand-held whiteboards or whether they 'statue' the sentence, i.e., become living sculptures and freeze. When I invented this game, the Mannequin Challenge did not yet exist, but if your students are familiar with that, it adds a little something too.

Preparation:

1. This game does really need individual student whiteboards. If you don't have those, I heartily recommend them for the myriad of activities they will allow you to do. Stop reading this blog post and get some whiteboards. Advice for how to do that here.
2. Write / choose / create / find a story with sentences that can easily lend themselves to be drawn or acted out.
3. Decide what kind of order you will use in reading the sentences to the students.
1. If it is a known text, you can get away with going out of story order.
2. If they are reading something for the first time, best to stick with story order. Also be prepared to allow students to clarify meaning of new words if you choose this path.
4. Type up the sentences so you can easily show them one at a time (like in a slideshow).
5. Think ahead about what each sentence will look like when students create it as a drawing or a 'statue.' Note how many 'statues' a sentence might need, or how many different objects or characters would be in a drawing. Then design your groups to ensure student success. Let me give you a couple examples.
1. Puella videt lunam in caelo.
1. In your mind, you might picture this:
2. You can imagine a student drawing similar to that, but stick figure-y and without much detail.
3. You can also imagine a student taking the role of 'puella' and a student taking the role of 'lunam'.
4. So this sentence works best with 2-person groups.
2. Puella videt lunam, stellās in caelō, et ursum.
1. You can imagine a student drawing this, but there are at least four things to draw.
2. Imagining the 'statue' means at least 3 roles (if moon & stars are combined somehow), but probably 4 roles (puella, lunam, stellas, ursum).
3. This sentence won't work with 2-person groups. You will probably need groups of 4.

So preview the story you're working with and design the game accordingly. There are ways to change the numbers in the groups during the game, but doing so can be difficult the first time students play.

Gameplay:

• Get the students into their groups with their whiteboard materials (board, marker, eraser).
• Ensure groups can see your presentation and are spread out around the room so that they can 'statue' effectively.
• Read the first sentence with the students in Latin.
• Do your normal classroom procedure for clarifying meaning and confirming that students understand before you move on. In my class, that means students signal for 'time-outs' to ask 'Quid significat?' questions. When they understand and want to move on, they use a thumbs-up or the ASL sign for 'all done'.
• Choose a student at random (popsicle sticks, index cards, etc.) Ask that student 'Pictura an Statua?'
• When the student chooses, announce their choice enthusiastically and start a timer for 30 seconds. It is very important that the students feel timed. You can use a timer on a computer (although I keep the sentence up for them to reference), a sand timer, or just count in your head / on your hands.
• Once the time is out, I call ‘sistite! facite statuas!’ or ‘sistite! demonstrate picturas!’ Students freeze into statue positions or hold up their boards. Silence and good listening is now expected. Students may try to explain themselves in Latin, that’s usually okay if it is quick. I take points away for English after the timer goes off.
• Then comes the time for even more comprehensible input - I go around the room and award points based on the students’ efforts to include all the words from the sentence, or sometimes just silly points for fun. Advice - be very generous with the points. Also, this should provide plenty of chances to repeat those target words. For the example above, I would award points for:
• Puella
• videt
• lunam
• stellās
• in caelō
• ursum
• Since I’m guessing you awesome readers can figure out what that would look like in picture form, but may not be as familiar with the statue part of the game, here's how that generally looks if the student chose ‘statua’:
• Puella - most of the time the kids forget to show the details of the main character when statuing, so if it is obvious that a puella is a person, I award a point.

• videt - big eyes, arm pointing, using a hand to block the sun and look into the distance - all of these things earn points

• lunam - putting arms in a crescent or full moon kind of shape, rolling into a ball for a full moon - all of these earn points

• stellās - spreading out all five fingers to show stars (it’s a statue, no twinkling!), 2 students standing with legs and arms spread wide to show a star shape with their body - all of these earn points.

• in caelō - luna and stellas at least above the waist if not above the head - I award a point.

• ursum - actions that show bear-ness - a growly face, holding out paws, scratching against a tree/wall, hibernating - for all of these I award a point.
• Okay, so what does that look/sound like?
  I point to a group, point to a specific person in the group /part of their body/part of their picture. Say the Latin for it, and quickly follow that with ‘punctum!’ As the students are listening, it sounds to them like ‘lunam? punctum!’, ‘lunam? punctum!’, ‘lunam? punctum!’, lunam? punctum!’ This helps it go quickly, since they’re trying to stay still.
  Occasionally, someone has forgotten to include something in their statue: ‘lunam? eheu! est non in statua!’
• Once you’ve awarded points for all the targeted words in the sentence, let them add up the points, write them on their whiteboards, and prepare to view the next sentence in the presentation.

Finally, some more advanced ideas:

• Auto-switch: If the students have chosen the same option 3 times in a row, there is no choice for the next sentence, it automatically goes to the opposite.
• You can go a good amount slower with the pictures than the statues, and the input is ‘more comprehensible’ - i.e., students can more easily observe other drawings during the points phase than they can other statues. you can also ask more questions or be more descriptive, blending in circling or simply quizzing each team about their drawing.
• This activity is an excellent one to transition out of if it isn’t working for you or the students that day. Since you already have sentences in a presentation going one by one, you alter your plan pretty flexibly.
• Guest-Judge: If you've played it with a class a few times before and you have a student for whom the 'statue' part isn't great, but their level of oral/aural skill is quite high, you can have them serve as a second judge of points. To start, they can award 'bonus' points to their favorite group for each word.

This is a great activity for days when 1) your students will have a bunch of energy, and 2) you're planning on reading a story. That said, it only truly works well if the story is suited to artistic interpretation - lots of objects, scene/setting changes, bold actions, characters, and such. If you've got a lot of dialogue or thoughts, steer clear.

Hope to be in touch again in the New Year!

Coming Full Circle - Pliny 2016

When Rachel and I started this blog, we were beginning our journey into untextbooking. We've shared our successes and failures, our ideas and research. Now, we are beginning to come full circle. Both Rachel and I have successfully defended our Master's theses and we both used our original inspiration in untextbooking as part of that process: Pliny the Elder.

This year, our third full year of this process (four if you count the half year of work and half year of research), and we've come full circle. This year both of our classes are reading Pliny the Elder again. Both of our classes chose to read about fantastical creatures. Rachel and I are taking two different, if similar, approaches and we are reading different pieces, but we are both drawing on and improving upon what we did four years ago.

The next series of posts is going to detail some of the activities and unit building we've been working on. I plan to write, in this post, about how I am building my units and in subsequent posts about specific plans and ideas that I've been developing.

Nota Bene: this is a lengthy post. I have decided to break it up with colours and images of work I've done thus far. Please feel free to comment with questions if I am unclear at all!

The Overarching Goals

Since we use standards based grading and untextbooking, there isn't a specific vocabulary list or grammar list I want to reach. Rather, those come from the authors we are reading and high frequency lists that we rely on. We want our kids to be able to read literature in Latin, so we use high frequency lists to help inform our teaching. 

The Authors

I decided that I wanted the main author to be Pliny the Elder, as we decided four years ago. But, I also realised that I wanted to include some stories and things that aren't included in Pliny's work. So I expanded the list to include some medieval authors.

The students chose the unit fantastical creatures last year when they voted, but I chose the monsters we were to read about. I will readily admit that I chose some of them because I've read the stories and fell in love with them. I chose the others based on what I knew student interest to be. To that end, we read/are reading about:

1. polypus Plinii - a giant octopus invades an Italian coastal town and terrorises its residents and dogs, and eats their food. (Author: Pliny the Elder)
   
2. unicornis ferus - the unicorn is a composite monster that is the exact opposite of what our contemporary mythology tells us; further, only a young maiden can tame him. (Authors: Pliny the Elder, Isidore de Seville)
3. vrykolacae - the excommunicated dead are possessed by demons and they wander the towns looking for specific people to kill; one story tells of a group of children who find one in an open tomb and proceed to use him as a trampoline until stopped by a priest. (Author: Leo Allatius)
4. basilisci serpentes - the fearsome basilisk wreaks havoc on plants, animals, and humans with its smell. They say looking at it can kill a man. (Authors: Pliny the Elder, J.K. Rowling)

It's all about perspective

In our standards, a lot of those for Latin II this year deal with students expressing themselves, their opinions, and backing them up with evidence and discussion. A few weeks ago I was speaking to a college professor (not a foreign language teacher) who said one of the biggest issues he sees is students who cannot work out problems on their own or express their own views or thoughts. They want to be given a list to memorise, a series of correct answers for a test, but that is not how many college classes work, nor is it how life works. What he said re-validated my purpose this year to get the kids more comfortable talking about and expressing themselves and their ideas. 

For this unit, we approach each story from three levels:

• What does the story tell us?
• What does science tell us?
• What does urban legend and contemporary mythology tell us?

These three perspectives not only serve to bring more student interest into the class (seeing Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony on the screen certainly got a reaction), but also provide multiple perspectives from which a student may draw connection and information. Students were expected to discuss the stories from these perspectives, not only speaking about the culture and history of the Romans, but also understanding connections to contemporary times and their own personal interests. 

Building the Unit

To build this unit, I followed a pretty similar process for each story. I will detail the activities in other posts. To compare, here is Rachel's post on a unit she built four years ago using Pliny the Elder's work.

Step 1 - Identifying key vocabulary

I relied heavily on the authors for vocabulary, even the stories I was not familiar with. I read the original Latin and used frequency lists to determine what words were high frequency. I did keep some low frequency words in, but this was because they were essential to the story. To give you an idea, here is the vocabulary list for the polypus story:

ascendere - to climb                                                        videtur - it appears

adflatu - with his smell                                                   cognoscere - to recognise

inauditus - unheard of                                                     mare - sea

polypus - octopus (Pliny's word)                                    lacus - lake/container

The vocabulary differs from story to story, but I use a variety of methods and activities to build repetitions and confidence in the vocabulary. 

Step 2 - Edit/Adapt stories

My goal was to keep to the originals as much as possible, if not in form, in story line. So far, I've been able to do this 100% (which makes me exceedingly happy) and in doing so, I've realised a few things:

1. When we read excerpts or translations, we often miss the best parts. -- prior to this, I'd only read excerpts of Pliny for class or for research (although my research opened me up to some new parts of his work) and some only in translation. By going back to the Latin and really reading it closely, I was able to get great stories and descriptions and a great list of vocabulary
2. By relying on given knowledge, we may miss something interesting, vital, or cool. -- I readily admit that I did not know about all these stories originally. Some I learned in classes, some from individuals, and some from my own reading. What I discovered, however, is that if I relied only what I remembered, or a single passage I was familiar with, I missed whole portions of the story that were, often, more interesting than what had been shared with me originally. This is no one's fault (otherwise we'd be sharing pages and pages of stories for days and days), and yet I think it is important to find sources for this reason. 
3. By sticking to what may be called a "canon" or "accepted" or "approved" reading (depending on who you are, where you are, and what your program is like), we limit our knowledge and range of interest. --  Medieval literature is often overlooked in favour of Classical Roman writers (particularly those whose stories appear in textbooks or whose work is most often discussed in our wider circles), but I think this can be a mistake. I think we need to widen our horizons. I don't mean we should ignore those great authors (I have been made more certain that Caesar is awesome) but rather, we can combine and support them with other more contemporary or lesser known authors.
   
   Without medieval and contemporary works, I would not have had half the story of the unicorn to share (how to defeat it). Nor would I have had any of the vrykolacae story, which is uniquely Greek and medieval. Nor would I have had something to compare Pliny's discussion of the basilisk to.
   
   Yes, this required me stepping out of my comfort zone. It required some time and research from me. However, I think it was worth it and I know my students' Latin, understanding of Roman culture, and ability to express themselves in English and Latin are better because of it. 

When I took the originals, I tried to keep the vocabulary as close as I could (bearing in mind frequency) and the structure, if I felt it was appropriate. What happened was a marriage of Classical, medieval/contemporary, and teacher written stories. 

In the image to the left, you'll see a portion of the unicorn story we read in class. I want to point a few things out that might make this process clearer. Throughout this story I married Pliny's own words with Isidore de Seville's and my own (which were heavily influenced by the two authors. Below is the text again, but with mine, Pliny's, and Isidore de Seville's colour coded. 

dixit in India animal ferissimum esse. unicornes erant feriores quam omnia animalia. reliquo corpore equo similis, capite cervo, pedibus elephanto, cauda apro, uno cornu nigro media capite erat. nemo negabat ferum unicornem esse. nemo unicornem vivum videbat.

vocabatur rhinoceron a Graecis; Latine significabat “cornu in nasu.” erat unicornis. unum cornu in medio* capite pedum quattuor habebat. cornu acutissimum erat. cum elephantos pugnaret, elephanti in terra ceciderunt. quam ferus erat unicornis. etiam homines unicornis necabat.

erat fabula; omnes cognoverunt qui naturas animalium scripserunt

My edits mostly include original vocabulary, but word order or grammar is changed to make it clearer to students. This passage does not shelter grammar, but rather vocabulary: sticking to words that students know/are learning and using grammar that is needed. 

* this was a typo in the image that has since been corrected. It read "media". #reasonswhyautocorrectisawful

Step 3: Develop your teaching strategy

I mean this to say - How will you capture students in the moment and find something for them to grab on to. We teach using Comprehensible Input, so I drew from those activities to build my lessons for my stories. The basic thought of how this works for my class is:

1. Keep it a secret! Don't give the monster's identity away until you absolutely have to!
2. Delay it! Fill the space with vocabulary reinforcement and CI activities to build suspense. 
3. Explain it! When you finally reveal, plan a day to discuss products, perspectives, and practices to students to help them see points of view and understand the stories better.*

* Credit to Robert Patrick for this work.

Bearing these in mind, I have a basic outline of activities that I do for each story:

1. A dictation of some kind (will be in next post).
2. Vocabulary Reinforcement through:
   * movie shorts
   * TPR
   * TPRS
   * One Word Images
   * etc.
3. Reading of the story and follow up activities (will be in future post)
   * Reading Option A
   * Read, Discuss, and Draw
   * Reader's Theatre
   * Reading Experts (also in future post)
   * Read Dating
   * Timed Writes
4. Products, Perspectives, and Practices Discussion (will be in future post) -- This combines the story, science, and legend. 
5. Assessment

Using these steps, I've built each lesson around our stories. I look forward to sharing them with you.