I started this blog in 2012—holy moly nearly a decade ago!—as a place for ideas about Latin poetry. At the time, I didn’t have much else to share besides what I knew on an abstract level about meter, and rhythm. My attention turned to understanding a bit of second language acquisition (SLA) as I began teaching. Therefore, I shifted the focus of this blog to sharing more practical language teaching ideas. Needless to say, poetry took a back seat. Still, I kept presenting on meter at Classical conferences. At these conferences, I learned that poetry didn’t make sense to a lot of Latin teachers, and I started lending a hand in what I began calling “rhythmic fluency,” sharing materials, and adding them to a tab here on the blog. I pretty much left that alone for years. It’s time for a reboot…
Continue readingpoetry of the week
Curriculum: A Visualization
Let’s face it; most school-wide PD is trash. Either only one content area greatly benefits, or in an effort to get every department on the same page the facilitators end up wasting everyone’s time altogether.
Not today…
Using Novellas: 5 No-Prep Ways To Read
**Check out Using Novellas for a growing collection of ideas**
Teachers have had many questions regarding the use of novellas in the classroom. While the easiest is to simply have them available for students to read, I’ve taken a more cumulative approach to setting aside time for independent reading this year. Here are 5 different no-prep ways to read novellas:
**ALL novellas available for Free Voluntary Reading (FVR)**
1) Whole-Class & Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) Intro
2) Whole-Class & SSR
3) SSR & Expanded Readings (ExR)
4) Audiobook, SSR & ExR
5) Poetry of the Week
Keep reading for a LOT more detail…
Continue readingPoetry Of The Week (POW) 3
Here’s that first post with a longer explanation. Otherwise, the process:
- Students get a copy of fragmenta Pīsōnis
- Silient Sustained Reading (SSR) of the nefās est section for 10 minutes.
The new section is a little longer with 107 total words in length, but it also contains four lines of dactylic hexameter. If students finish before the timer goes off, they should reread the previous section, lutulentus ubīque.
After the 10 minutes of SSR, I’ll play the audio, then ask questions about the prose description, and finally recite the featured line of poetry.
Previous Audio Files:
0 fragmenta mea
1 lutulentus ubīque – Rūfus erat lutulentus et is…
New Audio Files:
1.1 nefās est – Rūfus vult lutulārī hodiē
1.2 nefas est – ecce domī est māter Rōmāna et
1.3 nefas est – Rūfus vult lutulārī in Templō
Poetry Of The Week
Here’s the first post with a longer explanation.
Since I’ve already done the introductory section last week, students will begin class tomorrow by grabbing a copy of fragmenta Pīsōnis, and reading the lutulentus ubīque section for 10 minutes. This is Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) because everyone is reading the same text. That section is a modest 88 total words in length, and contains one line of dactylic hexameter. If students finish before the timer goes off, they should rereadfragmenta mea, the introductory section about how Piso composes poetry. The introductory section is about 400 words in total length. If you’re just starting Poetry Of The Week, I recommend reading that one together as a class because that’s a lot of Latin for first year students to read independently before reciting!
After the 10 minutes of SSR, I’ll play the audio. Then, I’ll ask questions about the prose description, and finally recite the featured line of poetry.
The Audio Files:
0 – fragmenta mea
1 – lutulentus ubīque – Rūfus erat lutulentus et is…
No-Prep Monday Poetry Of The Week: Using fragmenta Pīsōnis
For this year’s students, learning about the Romans—in Latin—began late in October with a CALP-inspired topic exploration on Roman housing (more on this, later) after months of focusing on the self, class, and community. Exploring Roman housing took place just after students read their first novella, Quīntus et nox horrifica. Upon returning from the December holiday break, students read their second novella, Drūsilla in Subūrā, which featured city-living apartments more familiar to them after the topic exploration during the fall. Learning about the Romans will now continue throughout the year as a new weekly routine begins…
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Magister P. 