schoolify ci

Lower Book To Read, Higher Book To Translate

/ magisterp / 3 Comments

Since translating, per se, isn’t the problem, and I’ve had success with Read & Translate alongside Read & Summarize (see input-based strategies & activities), my next update to the book-club-like “Novella Month” (now in May) will distinguish between reading and translating. Groups will choose a lower level book they can easily read over four weeks, as well as a higher level book they’ll plug-away at as a group (i.e., not to finish).

This serves two purposes. The first illustrates the different experiences to help students determine when they’ve chosen a book too high above their level, and the other gets at “schoolifying CI.” Whereas the first years of Novella Month included end-of-class prompts to respond to as some kind of low stakes “accountability,” this year’s products will be the translations of the higher level book (added to their portfolio as learning evidence). So no, there will be no product for the lower level book they’re reading, but that might help the cause of creating learners who read because they want to, and not because they have to. Also, several of those end-of-class prompts (choose 4?) are going to be used as a way to wrap up Novella Month along with comparing the two experiences of reading & translating.

Practically speaking, Novella Month will take place twice a week during the second half of every Monday/Wednesday (or Tuesday/Thursday) class. What goes on during the first half? We’ll be reading a books as a whole class: two weeks of The Star Diaries, a week of The Cognate Book, and two weeks of trēs amīcī et mōnstrum saevum. Fridays will be more free reading and a game based on the whole class text we’re reading. Almost done.

Bethany Sawyer’s Table Qs

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At CANE’s Annual Meeting last week, Bethany Sawyer shared a reading comprehension strategy “in chart form” that I’m calling Table Qs. This EZ format breaks up a text while giving students something specific to do while reading that focuses their attention. I think of this as giving students’ minds a job to do. When I brought this idea to our Director of Curriculum & Instruction, she (also an ELA teacher) found it similar to when they first do annotations. Instead of just “hey, annotate,” there’s always an “annotate for ____” prompt to guide students. It follows, then, that a “hey, read” prompt very well might result in students looking at the text, and maybe registering certain words, but something short of processing the Latin and really comprehending. Table Qs is one support for that. This kind of structure is also a great example of schoolifying CI. In short, students answer a question in the left column, underlining/highlighting its Latin in the right column. All you gotta do is drop text into a Doc, and make some Qs.

The key?

Don’t make obvious questions that allow students to avoid reading altogether! That would defeat the whole purpose. While it took me about 15 minutes to put a front/back Table Q page together, I’d consider it wasted time if all students were to do would be skimming the Latin to answer a question. While making these Qs is certainly a skill, consider rephrasing ones that call for a single word that’s basically already given in the question. Also consider avoiding “who?” Qs when there’s only one proper noun in the selected text. If that’s the case, at least add a follow up (e.g., “who ____ and then what do they do?”).

Check out the fourth Q in the screenshot below. That could’ve been “Marcus is what?” or “Is Marcus confused?” However, the Q allows for a number of responses that all indicate comprehension, such as “he’s not Egyptian” or “he doesn’t know hieroglyphics,” and encourages reading the whole segment (i.e., NOT just picking out only the Latin needed to answer a poorly formed Q). As a confirmation of understanding and to support their answer, students underline (or highlight if a digital Google Doc) the specific Latin. The following screenshot is from the second chapter of Mārcus et scytala Caesaris: