I am about to start a new unit with my Latin IV students and I'm really excited about it. It will heavily involve my favorite Roman author--Pliny the Elder--and will look at Roman science and sources and what they believed was real and why they believed it.

Before we start the unit, however, to try to help them see past their bias of "how could they even BELIEVE that sort of thing?" I put together a quick lesson to put them in the shoes of a culture that had only seen a tiny corner of a much larger world. 

To do this, I am using a poem by J. R. R. Tolkien about one of the creatures he created for his Lord of the Rings series: "Oliphaunt." I like this poem because it is clearly an homage to the elephant, but describes the creature as an oddity, something that has only been witnessed rarely and has to be explained to be understood. I read the poem out loud to my students but stopped before the poem names its animal and asked my students to tell me what it was describing.

They of course said "elephant." 

We then watched a short clip from Lord of the Rings that shows the Oliphaunt in action.

From there we talked about what an alien creature an elephant was the first time the Romans saw it, the idea of a fully functioning appendage coming out of something's face, a creature four times the size of anything else they had encountered, the strange sounds, the enemy riding in on MONSTERS and how terrifying that would be. How limited the Roman scope of the world was, and the sense of wonder that would accompany the introduction of any new creature or culture, and how possible the impossible would have seemed. Why wouldn't anything at all exist, if there were giant gray monsters with arms for noses and horns in their mouths?

​Finally, I challenged them. Students got into groups, chose animals for themselves, and created descriptions that both referenced their animals and kept the identity mysterious. Those who wanted to were welcome to write in poetic form--and a surprising number did! Then groups read their descriptions to the class for the other students to guess. Usually they guessed, although sometimes they were tricky.

Lots of laughs, lots of joy, and my students feel ready to move on with open minds.

I was feeling creative and wanted a new way to review a reading last week. I have also been running at about 100% capacity for about a month now and am beginning to tire out, so I wanted an activity that would feel fresh, new, and fun to the students, but give me a break in terms of my own energy output. 

My solution was to create an Easter Egg Hunt! It's a variation on matching sentences to pictures, but much more engaging.

Prep:

1. Start with a set of sentences and images that go together. I prefer to do this with a story I've already illustrated with stick figures.
2. Put the images around your room paired with a cup, envelope, or, if you are like me, a quickly-crafted paper pouch.
3. Print enough copies of the sentences that you have a full set for each group you plan to have. 
4. Color-code the sentences to go with the eggs: a blue mark on each for blue eggs, green for green eggs, and, if you are like me and have more groups than egg colors, some combos: blue and orange marks for blue-orange egg combos, etc. 
5. Put one sentence in each egg, making sure you align the colors with the colors of eggs.
6. Hide the eggs around your room! My rule: it must be visible from somewhere standing in the classroom. That doesn't mean you can't be creative, but it does prevent turning your room upside down during the egg hunt. 

Running the Activity:
Some of the eggs will be absolutely obvious. Students will be intrigued as they enter. It will be fun to wait to tell them.

1. Each group is assigned a color and hunts exclusively for that color. 
2. They put their sentences in the pouch with the correct image. There is only one correct sentence for each image.
3. I checked as they went and returned incorrect sentences to groups for them to try again.
4. Once I had the full rainbow in each pouch, I knew everyone had them all correct, and this can be taken as an easy comprehension grade (your choice!)

I wasn't wrong! They really enjoyed the activity and my other classes came in commenting on the pictures they saw.
Plus, the assignment was both easy to prep and easy to run.
Prep:
I put the following instructions on the board along with a list of new vocabulary words:​

Aside from being fun, the best part of this activity is the free advertising it gives your program! Other students in your school are sure to notice Latin sentences and stick figure art around campus, especially in fun chalk colors. 

So, low prep, in-context vocabulary practice, repetitions from reading other students' sentences, fun with sidewalk chalk, AND free advertising? This activity is all wins!

So I have been thinking for a while about how to make the time spent with movie shorts more meaningful without making it more repetitive. I am always all about repetition without being repetitive!

This idea came to me at the very end of last school year, and I couldn't wait to put it into action--which is why it is the first thing I did with my Latin II class this year. It's simple in premise, and only a little complicated in application, but I think the benefits are really outstanding.

The premise is: for two days in a row, do two movie talks, then on a third day, compare and contrast them in some way.

The application takes a little more finesse, I realized, as I looked at the vocabulary I needed to teach and reinforce, and realized I needed to do two things to make this work:

1. Find two movie shorts that complement the vocabulary enough that I could work it in without it being difficult
2. Find two movie shorts that complement each other enough that comparing and contrasting them makes sense

In addition, I decided to make things harder by adding this:

1. Find two movie talks that share a theme with the story we are going to be reading next week

That said, eventually I realized that I could think of two movie shorts that both shared the theme of the struggle of parent-child relationships and overprotective zeal. So I created movie talks for Bao and Far From the Tree and then a comparison activity for my students that was heavy on the input and low on the output since they are fresh from summer. The layout of my activities is below!

Day 1
Bao Movie Short 
If time permits, Vocabulary Match Cards

Day 2
Far From the Tree Movie Short
If time permits, Vocabulary Bricks

Day 3
Pairs of Shorts Activity* Please see explanation below!
Discussion in class about the characters and students' evaluations of them and their motivations.

Helpful Resources!

• My blog posts about games and activities I've created to go with Google Classroom. Specifically, this one includes Vocabulary Match Cards and this one includes Vocabulary Bricks.
• There are a lot of resources about how to do movie talks. I think this one by Keith Toda is probably the most succinct and offers two Latin demonstrations.
• The Pairs of Shorts Activity is new! The link is view-only, so to really understand how it works, you will need your own copy. I made an interactive Google slide and assigned a copy to each student in Google Classroom. There are three slides that ask questions about the three parents in the story: do they love their child, do they fear their child, does their child like them?

• Students are given the heads of the mother from Bao and the two fully grown raccoon parents from Far From the Tree to drag on a continuum of how much they agree or disagree with the question: very much, yes, no, not at all. Then, below those three slides are screen shots and statements from the movie talks that students use to choose from as "reasons" or "rationes" they answered the questions the way they did. I told them there's no right or wrong answer--as long as their reasons make sense. This compels them to read through the stories again, possibly up to three or more times, to find the right reasons to paste on each of the question slides.

Final Takeaways
I think this was a successful shakeup of the normal movie talk pattern. Students stayed engaged with the vocabulary because there was always something new to see and hear. I enjoyed the change in pattern myself and felt more excited to teach each day when there was new material, even though the words were the same. 

My eventual plan is to do something similar with less scaffolding for the discussion, but for right now, this is Latin II and we haven't even attended a full week of school, so I'll let them ease in a little!

​"Dictatio" is one of the few words my students dread in my class. I'm going to admit that it's a nice break for me--requiring only voice and repetition and pretty much no creativity--and it sometimes finds its way into my plans simply because I need a day that does not require all of my energy. Dictationes fall within my Comprehensible Input toolbox because as long as I keep the vocabulary limited, the dictated sentences provide valuable repetition.

But students rarely enjoy it. Writing down a dictation is not a compelling activity.

I have tried to spice it up by making the dictatio its own story, or even a lead in to the main story I'm working toward but missing crucial information. That has its place, and it helps. But it does not keep students from moaning "eheu!" the next time they see "Dictatio" listed on the day's schedule.

This year I have only done a traditional dictatio twice so far, and I am working to slowly replace the practice completely for myself with equally low-stress but much more compelling versions of sentence listening and writing. There is something useful for acquisition in writing something down, and auditory repetition of understandable messages is universally good for acquisition. So I don't want to give up those strengths. I just want less "eheu" and more "euge" while students acquire Latin.

Keith Toda often cites Carol Gaab's statement, "The mind craves novelty." If I simply replace dictatio with just one activity and do it every other week or so, students will grow as bored of that activity as they are of dictatio. Instead, I've been gathering dictatio options.

With the new semester coming up, I thought I'd share the dictatio options I keep on hand. I hope to continue to add new twists and ideas to this list.

1. Dictatio. This is the basic format of a dictatio, though I have seen it with a few variations (one of which is here).
2. Running dictation. This is a paired form of dictatio, with a lot more activity and can be made into a race to add some drive. The short description is that students run to sentences posted around the room (or hall), memorize them, and repeat them to their partners, who then write them down. Find a full description here, here, and an extension here.
3. Scrambled eggs. This is kind of a variation on the running dictation above; instead of posting sentences around the room they are folded in plastic easter eggs along with some duds. Find a full description here. Miriam and I have changed the dud eggs into stuffed animal interaction eggs (commands are things like: get your favorite animal, give the best animal to your teacher, etc.) and that seems to remove student frustration with the duds.
4. Micrologue. This is an image-driven dictation activity in which you tell one student a story while other students write the story down, then review the story with the student, then let the students correct their writing, and finally ask the student who didn't write to retell the story to the class. You can find a description here, a demonstration here, and the micrologue I recently used with my students here.
5. QR codes, pictures, and sub day dictations. Miriam recently posted a collection of three variants of dictation she uses in her classes here. All of them are great, but I used the QR code dictation in my class (called a "monster hunt" and linked on Miriam's post) and my students adored it. It had a purpose: gathering clues to guess the monster. More on that in a moment. That said, I think even had there been no purpose, most students were completely compelled just by the delivery. I'm doing this again next semester...once. This is a treat that I want my students to continue to be excited about.
6. Pictura an Statua? This guest post by K.C. Kless has definitely been added to my rotation of dictatio substitutions and I can't wait to try it out. Students in teams either draw or pose to represent the sentences posted, allowing both movement and creative thought.
7. Write or Wait. K.C. posted this activity on his brand new blog and I'm adding it here because it's a perfect alternative approach to dictation. Quick description: students get a certain number of sentences that they must write ahead and a certain number that they can wait and write with the teacher. Read the post here, it's really good.

I am continually looking for ways to bring variety to my classes, and I am working to make sure that every thing we do is as compelling as possible. The key to language acquisition is for students to forget that they are learning a language--that requires compelling activities and texts, ideally with a purpose. My recent summary of my ACTFL takeaways describes the importance of purpose and task-driven language teaching to student language acquisition.

One way Miriam and I were able to bring purpose to our dictation type activities last quarter was to either 

• leave out key information and ask students to use the information provided to make educated guesses about the missing information OR
• offer the description in its entirety and ask students to use the information to made educated guesses about the monster described.

Bill VanPatten encourages teachers to think in terms of purpose and tasks; Miriam and I are working on shifting our vision and ideas that direction. Another change and big idea to bring to my classroom--another reason to keep improving and making my Latin classes as effective and inclusive as possible!

This first ran in Pomegranate Beginnings in May 2013. I still agree with it and, almost a decade later, find standardized testing in the same place, if not worse. I have moved on to teachers' unions instead of a separate organizing force (which has ceased to be anyway), and still push for change.

A couple of weeks ago, I was monitoring a test.

It was my third test of the day.  I was bored.  This particular test is a state-mandated standardized test that asks teachers to "actively monitor"--meaning no grading, no planning, no computer, only watching students stare at computer screens--students to make sure the test is as secure as possible.  My job was to walk around, not read the test at all, make sure no one is looking at anyone else, etc.

By the middle of the first test I felt like going crazy.  I had random urges to jump around and wave my arms spasmodically in the air, just to change my pattern: weave this way between the computer tables; now this way.  I will admit to a certain level of hyperactivity and a pretty persistent need to keep my mind busy that often requires a pen and paper (at least) to record my thoughts.  This walking in circles thing while watching kids stare at computers, listening to mice click, scroll, click, is about as opposite my natural modus operandi as it gets.  When I first started teaching I used to carry a stone in one hand when I gave tests in my classroom so I could at least fiddle with something, but I didn't bring one to this test.

It was during one of my passes between computer tables that I noticed it.  Thin, shaky lines, obviously originally written to be hidden, but now betrayed by a simple rearrangement of cardboard dividers, spelled out one student's despair in three straight-forward words: school sucks balls.

School sucks balls.

I silently agreed with the concisely authored phrase as I did a quick turnaround just in case students might think they knew my path well enough to steal a glance at someone else's test--a test that contained different questions in a different order than their tests.  In that setting, at that moment, how could I disagree?  There was no learning, no spirit of inquiry, no empathy, nothing that makes school special, in that setting and at that moment.

There was the test.

And, before that, there was preparing for the test.

Teaching this year has been an eye-opening experience.   Before this year, I was already against standardized testing, pre-testing, interim testing, post testing, and field testing (we did all of these this year--none of that is made up).  I follow SOS: Save Our Schools [the link has been removed as the site is defunct now in 2022], a movement against testing as a means of measuring student and teacher achievement.  I recognized the invalidity of a standardized test as a means of measuring either intelligence or learning even as a preteen who was extremely good at testing.  I have hated standardized testing for a very long time.

Yet, I had never experienced teaching a class that culminated in a standardized test.

This year was the first year I've taught Language Arts in a public school.  Previous to that, I have mostly taught Latin, an untested field, and have had the freedom to tailor my classes to my students' needs.   If they knew the current concept and were ready to go on, we did.  If they needed more reinforcement of a concept, we spent more time on it.  I created a community in my classrooms; generally my Latin classes have been joyful and celebratory, filled with fun, jokes, and a personal relationship with my students that let me experiment with methodology and let them tell me with honesty what was working for them.

I still had two Latin classes this year, but I also taught three Language Arts classes.

The difference has been astounding.  I feel like I only got to know maybe a fifth of the students very well.  We were rarely creative.  We were rarely laughing.  We were rarely having fun.  I spent most of my time in the front of the room, lecturing, or pacing through the room while kids read, worked on worksheets, filled out forms.

I should say, this is not my school's fault.  My administration is amazing and supportive--I have never seen such a cohesive and reasonable group of principals.  My course team for Language Arts has bent over backwards to help me teach as effectively as possible and has been there for me every time I had a question--and that's been often.

Instead, it's the fault of the current push to punish schools and teachers for past trespasses that rarely have to do with anyone who is now in the field.  The current cry of "accountability" has spawned a testing craze that makes a huge amount of money for textbook companies and hurts everyone else in education, especially the students.

My students never got to experience the joy of enjoying a great book, never got to celebrate characters and revelations, connections between themselves and literature.  Instead, I got to spoon-feed them as much information as I could so they could be ready for The Test.  The Test, a state-mandated standardized test, was worth 20% of their grade.  Everything I did in class ultimately revolved around The Test.  And my kids, already convinced they don't like spending eight hours a day locked in a building being told what to do, found class boring, tedious, uncomfortable, and uninspiring.  So did I.

Every day I had both subjects, Language Arts and Latin, juxtaposed against each other as a clear illustration of the difference between a standardized and unstandardized subject.  Every day I would so enjoy my Latin classes that I came to dread facing my Language Arts classes and their lack of motivation.  It wasn't the students or the subject, it was the way I had to approach both.

All my spoon-feeding and worksheet-pushing achieved its goal; nearly all of my students not only received a passing score on The Test, but received a good score, one that improved their grade average in my class.  However, I know, from their expressions every time we started a new reading, that they got no joy in my class, found no new literature to love, and generally think Language Arts is one more class that they need to "get through" to graduate.

This is no way to educate life-long learners.  As things currently stand, "school sucks balls."

I only hope that, as this current unfortunate generation of students graduates and gains control of our politics, things will change and this trend will be remembered in history as the mistake and disaster that it is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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