In a Latin Best Practices Facebook group discussion months back, I shared that I wasn’t sure I do any pre- or post-reading. I just have a bunch of…activities. While I still think that’s true, I’ve decided to consolidate and organize everything under the pre/dum(during)/post categories to make planning even easier.

I almost can’t believe I just typed that. Planning—for me—already takes mere minutes. With broad Class Day and Culture Day unit plans established for reference, I’ve had no need to plan the class agenda more than a day or two in advance. In fact, doing so becomes a waste of time as things become irrelevant, or causes frustration when plans—inevitably—must change. N.B. I’m able to plan this way because I work under a “forward procedure” approach, which I highly recommend. Still, if there’s a way to reduce planning even further, I’m game.

I hear teachers talk about cycles a lot these days, which are kind of like longer planning routines. Since my school went to A/B day block schedule, the whole “Monday = ____ day” is pointless, and the longer 84 minute classes really messed with how I structured it all. This year was a big adjustment to say the least. So next year, I’m gonna give the cycle thing a try as it pertains to pre-, dum-, and post-reading sequences within a single class. This differs from what Elizabeth Davidson shared, noting that her sequence typically lasts 4-6 days. These past weeks, though, I’ve been using the sequences when reading a short text, such as a novella chapter, in one class. As such, the amount of pre- needed for the reading (dum-) is far more limited, as well as the scope of a post-reading wrap-up (usually a game). For the descriptions of everything that follows, see this updated list of activities, which is now organized by timing, not prep…

Pre-reading

• Quizlet, play Quizlet Live, add-on (printed text)
• K-F-D
• T/F dictation
• Chrono dictation

Dum-reading

• Read & Translate
• Choral Translation
• mendax!
• Highlight Your Confusion (printed text)
• Read &…
• Silent Volleyball Reading
• Most Points Wins
• Annotation (printed text, or project)
• As Many Details As You Can

Post-reading

• Lucky Reading Game
• Debate!
• Pop-up
• Pencil Grab
• Word Race (printed word cloud)
• septem!
• Unfair Game

Whereas everything above can be mixed and matched regardless of text, the following activities below have their own corresponding pre-, and post-reading sequences. Some are activities that result in a text, which means any of the pre-, dum-, and post-reading options above can be used afterwards. Others exist as dum-reading options themselves, and are color-coded to reflect that (which means any pre-reading activity above can also be used):

Independent Reading

• POST Game of Quotes

Slide Talk

• POST Task
• POST Student Stories

Storytelling (Fluency Write, COWATS, OWATS, AMSAP)

• PRE Collective Memory
• PRE Story Cube Brainstorm

Academic Latin (AL)
Discipulus Illustris & Magistrī Illustrēs

• POST Type ‘n Talk

Novellas

• POST Summārium personārum

Mārcus magulus
Rūfus et arma ātra
Agrippīna aurīga
Pīsō et Syra et pōtiōnēs mysticae

• POST The Game

MovieTalk

• PRE Thumbnail Add-on
• PRE Hidden PictureTalk
• PRE Memory Game PictureTalk
• POST What Wasn’t In The Story?
• POST Flyswatter PictureTalk

Read & Draw, and Silent T/F Reading

• POST Hidden PictureTalk
• POST Memory Game PictureTalk
• POST Flyswatter PictureTalk

The following are one-offs or occur at the end of an entire class, so they don’t have their own pre- or post-reading. Since absolutely everything else I do in class is in this one post, it seems only fitting to include them:

Why Latin?
mystērium
Flex Time
lector/audītor
One Word Image (OWI)