It’s DCI finals week, so you get a drum corps analogy. You have no idea what that is, you sort of know, or you marched colorguard in 1984? Well, this is what a DCI champion looks like these days. Drumlines usually begin the season in the winter months with complex and challenging music. In the summer, after hours and hours of rehearsal, that music is usually “watered-down” to something the performers can actually achieve, hence The Hose. I’ve long thought that it might be a more pedagogically-sound practice to write some basic “skeleton” music, and then expand it to be more challenging as performers improve throughout the season. The result would be music appropriate to the performers’ proficiency level (instead of spending time trying to reach something they can’t do, or can’t do well, only to ditch during finals week). Of course, it would take an incredibly patient drum line and staff in the winter to have faith that performer proficiency would improve beyond what appeared to be the “simple, easy beats” to play, and then become something impressive and worthy of playing in front of a crowd. In reality, though, the simple beats are quite rudimental to drumming, just like sheltered vocabulary is to second language learning.
Curriculum
Latin Stories Videos Series: Mīnōtaurus
This video series is inspired by Mike Peto’s straightforward Story Listening videos in Spanish, and Eric Herman’s structured English Class videos, both shared by John Piazza last month in an effort to get ones like these in Latin. Here’s the Minotaur myth retold using 21 unique words. The story is 229 words total in length.
Mīnōtaurus
1) Class
2) Story (Google Doc link found in YouTube video description)
3) Questions
Input: DENIED
I shared the following picture of my language library to the “iFLT/NTPRS/CI Teaching” Facebook group to share how reading novellas has increased my Spanish and French proficiency:
Now, the books circled in red are either mostly-unadapted ancient Latin containing support (i.e. some words defined—in Latin—in the margins), or Latin translations of books unintended for the language learner (e.g. The Hobbit, or Harry Potter). These represent more than half of my current extensive reading options for Latin—the others nearby not circled being 10 novellas with sheltered (i.e. limited) vocabulary published within the last three years. Sheltering vocabulary has had a positive effect on my Spanish and French proficiency, so I got thinking about the effects of reading unsheltered Latin…
High-Frequency Verbs
Someone asked the “Teaching Latin for Acquisition” Facebook group for a list of the top 10 verbs in each of our classes—if we had to make such a list. There were only about 10 11 comments, but many teachers probably use similar verbs and just didn’t have anything to add. What I find interesting, though, is that across the lists from only 10 11 comments, there were still 38 44 different verbs in total!
The verbs that were most common between everyone who chimed in were:
be (6 7)
want (5 6)
see (4 5)
be able (4)
be quiet (4 )
NTPRS 2017 Takeaways
Before having the opportunity to present a couple workshops, my mind was blown quite sufficiently during the week. Overall, the Advanced Track with Alina Filipescu and Jason Fritze got me thinking about aaaaaaaall the things I’ve forgotten to do, or stopped doing (for no good reason) over the years. Thankfully, most of them are going to be soooooo easy to [re]implement. As for the others, I’ll pick 2 at a time to add—not replace—until they become automatic. This will probably take the entire year; there’s no rush!
Jason referred to high-leverage strategies—those yielding amazing results with minimal effort (i.e. juice vs. squeeze), and I’m grateful that he called our attention to everything Alina was doing while teaching us Romanian. ce excelent! I’ll indicate some high-leverage strategies, and will go as far as to classify them as “non-negotiable” for my own teaching, using the letters “NN.” I’ll also indicate strategies to update or re-implement with the word “Update!” and those I’d like to try for the first time with the word “New!” I encourage you to give them all a try. Here are the takeaways organized by presenter:
Chapter 1: Paramount
I was sitting next to my friend and NTPRS travel buddy, Angie Dodd, as she read Rūfus et arma ātra to pass the time on the flight down to San Antonio. I’ve observed Angie teaching Spanish in VT, and she’s great. Angie took a few years of Latin back in high school, but remembers very little other than the opening lines of some Caesar, and Cicero (which she had to memorize, of course). “I feel like I’m reading more fluently by page 28,” she said. Truth.
In a novella with only 40 words, most of them will have been read long before the end of the book. It should be no surprise, then, that the most frequent words occur within the first chapter or two. This explains why reading the book actually became easier as Angie continued. This can be applied to all novellas that shelter (i.e. limit) vocabulary, and those with the lowest word counts have most of their words front-loaded within the first chapter or two, also obvious in my other books, Pīsō Ille Poētulus, and the latest, Agrippīna: māter fortis .
Therefore, if students feel the most strain in the first chapter or two, perhaps we should begin novellas together. Laurie Clarcq would often read half a novel together as a whole class before it would go on the Free Voluntary Reading (FVR) shelf. The rationale being that those interested/hooked will pick up the book to find out how it ends, and those disinterested will have a better chance of reading something else they find compelling.
BTW, Angie decided to reread the Rūfus—having had meaning established on the first pass—knowing that she would then “actually be able to read.” She did, with chuckles throughout.
CI is amazing, isn’t it?
p.s. Rūfus was inspired by Mira Canion’s El capibara con botas containing just 55 Spanish words. That book was a breeze and a blast to read, and I knew that Latin students needed something like this. Granted, the word count figure excludes a lot of Spanish cognates (twice as many?), but that seems to be the industry standard practice. For Pīsō, however, I strayed from this practice and instead chose to include cognates in the word count figure of 108 since I don’t believe cognates are necessarily transparent. I also excluded the ~30 additional meanings established in footnotes, as well as all different forms of words (e.g. est and esse) that students encounter when unsheltering (i.e. not limiting) grammar. Agrippīna has ~20, and Rūfus just ~10 additional meanings established in footnotes. If the word count figures irritate you, it’s fine to say that while Pīsō has under 150, Agrippīna has under 90, and Rūfus has under 50 words—figures still worthy of note!
Agrippīna māter fortis: Published
Agrippīna māter fortis is the latest addition to the “Pisoverse” novellas (i.e. Pīsō Ille Poētulus, and Rūfus et arma ātra) with Piso and Rufus’ mother in the spotlight! Agrippina wears dresses and prepares dinner like other Roman mothers, but she has a secret—she is strong, likes wearing armor, and can fight just like her husband! Can she keep this secret from her family and friends?
It was clear from the beginning that a novella with a strong female lead role was to be written. Agrippīna can be read as pure entertainment, or used as content for more serious discussions in the classroom about the role of women in antiquity, social norms, and contemporary issues with gender inequality.
Agrippīna māter fortis: A New Latin Novella
**Updated 6..30.17 – Agrippīna has been published!**
Agrippīna māter fortis is the latest addition to the “Pisoverse” novellas (i.e. Pīsō Ille Poētulus, and Rūfus et arma ātra), only now Piso and Rufus’ mother gets the spotlight! Agrippina wears dresses and prepares dinner like other Roman mothers, but she has a secret—she is strong, likes wearing armor, and can fight just like her husband! Can she keep this secret from her family and friends?
The novella is currently written with 65 unique words (n.b. Rūfus has 40, and Pīsō 108). Agrippīna is an engaging read, like Rūfus, but almost as long as Pīsō (n.b. Rūfus has ~1440 total words, Agrippīna ~2870, and Pīsō ~2935), making the density of unique words repeated in different contexts much higher. Stephen Krashen told me that a “density” metric didn’t really matter as much as compelling content. My wife, who doesn’t read Latin btw, couldn’t wait to finish the last two chapters of Agrippīna! That’s a good barometer! In addition to compelling content, we know that fewer words contribute to a sense of confidence while reading (for student feedback on the matter, see this post over at The Inclusive Latin Classroom). While Rūfus could be read within the first months of Latin I, Agrippīna can surely follow later in the year, although older students will enjoy confidence from reading something with ease.
As this year comes to a close, I’m asking that you take a look at the first half of the novella, maybe run off a class copy (or project it and read through), and then get back to me with ways to improve it. Asterisks indicate where I intend to establish meaning within the text as a footnote. I’ll be editing it in June, and it should be ready before the next school year. Enjoy!
Click here to access the first 6 chapters (of 12) for previewing/piloting.
Teacher’s Guide & Student Workbook for Pīsō
The 238 pages of support for Pīsō Ille Poētulus are finally here! In addition to invaluable information about Latin poetry, this Teacher’s Guide has 13 ready-to-go options for interacting with each chapter of Pīsō! Head to the copier, or project on board. Use them all, or choose a few per chapter; do whatever you’d like!
Rūfus et arma ātra: Published
“Latin texts with only 40 unique words are EXACTLY what the profession needs right now…and we need a lot of them.”
– Stephen Krashen on Rūfus et arma ātra
Rūfus et arma ātra, my latest Latin novella, is available now!
Magister P. 