In August of 2020, I wrote 0 To 70: Five Years Of Latin Novellas. Two years later, the number of Latin novellas nearly doubled. Well, another two years have gone by and we’ve seen 40 more, which is an increase of 31%! Above all, there are now 38 authors out there writing different kinds of Latin. In this post, I want to celebrate that different kind of Latin while revisiting some findings…
Continue readingALIRA
Latin & CI Criticism: Challenging Work & Higher-Order Thinking
A frequent complaint of comprehension-based Latin teaching is that students aren’t challenged enough. Critics point to Bloom’s “understanding” level, assuming that everything stops there, imagining students hanging out in the lower-order thinking levels. Given that assumption, the critic’s takeaway is that “CI Latin” is unchallenging, and lacks higher-order thinking.
Untrue.
What is true is that comprehension-based Latin teaching prioritizes understanding as step zero. Under such an approach, nothing is done without first understanding the Latin in front of all students. One immediate implication is that Latin texts must be level-appropriate for beginners in the first years of a new language. And that level is quite low. Therefore, it is true that these texts are at a much, much, much lower level than the kinds of texts traditionally used in Latin classrooms, but that’s just text level. This says nothing about thinking level. Do these truths mean that students do NOT engage in higher-order thinking with these lower level texts? Are students NOT challenged when reading and discussing in class?
Continue readingA Problem With Contract Grading & Instant Improvements
In my continued grading research, most systems I come across do seem to be a step in the right direction, but don’t quite go far enough to address the problem of grades taking away focus from learning. Contract grading is one of the systems that misses the mark because it tends to actually bring all the focus to a grade.
Continue readingALIRA: “All Your Datum Are Belong To Us…Plz?”
In the original draft of this post, I compared two data sets of students taking the ALIRA. However, I’m not really comfortable publishing that. I really don’t need anyone trying to play the victim when it’s been me going on a decade now defending my teaching practices and the kind of Latin that I read (and write) with students. It’s too bad, too, because the data are quite compelling. Some day, I’ll share the charts. Until then, you’ll have to take my word on it. You probably already know that I don’t fuck around, either, so my word is solid.
In short, the charts will contradict the claim that reading non-Classical Latin leaves students unprepared for reading Classical Latin. They will suggest that reading non-Classical Latin texts, such as those rife with Cognates & Latinglish via class texts and novellas, is of no disadvantage. They will also suggest that reading Classical texts is of no advantage. That’s all I’m prepared to share, for now.
Once a lot more data like these will be presented, though, the jury will start to come in on the matter of what kind of Latin prepares students for any other Latin. From what I’ve seen so far, it looks like A LOT of any Latin can prepare students to read other Latin, and that’s a good thing. These emerging data show that concerns and claims over certain kinds of Latin don’t play out in reality. Still, it’d be good to have more scores, not just the 532 ones currently submitted to that ALIRA form. If this all seems mysterious, it kind of has been. I haven’t shared the spreadsheet yet for viewing. That changes today!
Continue readingPedagogical Immunity
Certain learners exist who possess what seems like complete immunity to whatever pedagogy they’re subjected to. College students are a good example. Professors rarely have pedagogical training, which is perhaps the most ironic thing about those in charge of training pre-service primary and secondary teachers, but most college students are able to persist through a lack of solid pedagogy. How? Using their interests, some independent learning skills, and a bit of determination. Polyglots are another good example. They’ll learn many languages under all sorts of conditions that don’t transfer to others, claiming they found “the secret,” yet relatively few who adopt their “methods” report success (except for other…polyglots!). Upon thinking this over, many high school students—and not just those studying a second language—are often pedagogically immune, too. These students manage to pass courses even when teachers have wacky pedagogy with unhelpful practices. Consider the teacher using some pre-fab curriculum with loads of busywork. Students will put up with all that busywork. They might not learn much, but they’ll earn credit, then graduate. In that sense, then, these students made it through. They were immune (though not to learning…which we’ll get to). They just made it past the next level. They…”succeeded.”
Continue reading0 To 130: Seven Years Of Latin Novellas
In August of 2020, I wrote 0 To 70: Five Years Of Latin Novellas. Well, here we are just two years later having nearly doubled that number!!!! I’ve got two more coming out this year as well, so I’m betting it won’t be long until we hit that 140 mark.
Novellas are no joke. While the majority of teachers who discuss them are K-12, I know of at least one teacher prep program that’s been giving attention to these “new” resources in methods (etc.) courses, as well as various college professors listing them as required texts for their own students to read. This summer, I even learned that my cousin’s wife read an Olimpi book as part of a Midwest Philosophy grad program. And as more novellas make their way into classrooms, teachers and professors are tweaking how they use them. Here are my own findings…
Continue readingMethods & Results: To What Do We Attribute Success?
Not every teacher shares how well their students are doing—probably out of fear of being criticized—and I don’t blame them one bit. This data is often kept under lock and key, so it’s hard to get a sense of whether all the talk amounts to something. SPOILER ALERT: it does. The reports I’ve seen on how well students have been doing under a…NOT…grammar-translation approach tend to attribute success in different ways, though. Today, I’m looking at two such programs to see if we can narrow down what contributes success:
Program 1:
- 69% of Latin V students score Intermediate Mid (I4+) on ALIRA
- Focus on reading
- Translation of what is understood (vs. in order to understand)
- Uses LLPSI (Lingua Latina per se Illustrata)
- Uses novellas & other sources of input
- Speaks Latin whenever possible (i.e. judicious use of English)
- Establishes meaning in English (i.e. fēlēs = cat) when students ask
- CI is necessary, but not sufficient for acquisition
- Extensive interaction is most important
Program 2:
- 64% of Latin IV students score Intermediate Mid (I4+) on ALIRA
- Focus on reading
- Translation of what is understood (vs. in order to understand)
- No textbook
- Uses novellas & other sources of input
- Speaks Latin whenever possible (i.e. judicious use of English)
- Establishes meaning in English (i.e. fēlēs = cat)
- CI is necessary, and sufficient for acquisition
- Interaction is important
The results are very close by the end of each program, and there’s definitely more in common than not, but what isn’t in common makes for differently-enough teaching and learning environments. Both are just as successful, but what can we attribute that success to? Let’s look into those differences a bit more…
Continue readingAP Latin: There’s Bad News…And…Worse News
**Related: Revised AP Latin 2025**
I ran texts from the AP Latin syllabus through Voyant Tools:
- 6,300 total words in length
- 2,800 forms (i.e. aberant + abest = 2)
- 1,100 meanings/lemmas (i.e. aberant + abest = 1 meaning of “awayness”)*
Based on the research of Paul Nation (2000), 98% of vocabulary must be known in order to just…read…a text. According to Nation’s research, then, Latin students must know about 6,175 words they encounter in the text in order to read the AP syllabus texts. That’s a text written with 1,100 words. To put that into perspective, it’s been reported that students reasonably acquire ~175 Latin words per year, for a total of something more like 750 by the end of four high school years. Needless to say, there’s a low chance that all 750 would be included the Latin on the AP, and that varies from learner to learner. Even if they were, though, 750 is still only 68% of the vocabulary at best. Although this percentage isn’t the same as text coverage since it doesn’t account for how many of the 1,100 words repeat, it’s safe to say that the number isn’t going to be wildly higher. Even approaching 80% text coverage is not good. We know that reading starts to get very cumbersome below 80%. This is just one reason why no student can actually read AP Latin. Oh wait…
****Those figures are just for Caesar****
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Magister P. 