John Piazza shared how he moved his Independent Points Grade away from a homework-only system to a something regularly-scheduled during class time, mostly for equity reasons. These are good reasons. I’ve borrowed from this idea to create a new routine, just without the points…
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0 To 70: Five Years Of Latin Novellas
This September marks the fifth anniversary of the first two Latin novellas written with sheltered (i.e. limited) vocabulary for the language learner by co-authors Rachel Ash & Miriam Patrick, and Bob Patrick. There are now 70. That’s 0 to 70 in five years, and a whopping total figure of over 228,000 words of new Latin! What has the impact been? Let’s take a look…
Continue readingTotal Words Read
Last year, I reported total words read up to holiday break, and it’s hard to believe that time of year is upon us again. Since part of my teacher eval goal is to increase input throughout the year, let’s compare numbers. 2018-19 students read over 20,000 total words of Latin by this time. However, this year’s students have read…uh oh…just 11,000?!?!
Hold up.
Something’s going on. I’m positive that students are reading more now, and for longer periods of time. Classes are now structured to be roughly half listening and half reading (i.e. Talk & Read), too. So…why don’t the numbers add up?! Surely there’s a reason. Let’s look into that, starting with this quote from last year’s post:
“Over the 55 hours of CI starting in September up to the holiday break, students read on their own for 34 total minutes of Sustained Silent Reading (SSR), and 49 minutes of Free Voluntary Reading (FVR)…“
This year’s independent reading time has skyrocketed to 99 and 233. That’s nearly 5x more independent choice reading! Now, last year’s 20,000 figure included an estimated 1,900 from FVR. Therefore, it’s not unreasonable to estimate that this year’s students have read something like 9,500 total words during FVR, which would be like reading a third of this paragraph worth of Latin per minute. If so, the year-to-year comparison would be very close (i.e. 20,000 vs. 20,500). However, I’d expect the numbers to be much higher now with even more of a focus on reading. Seeing as it’s really difficult to nail down a confident number during independent choice reading due to individual differences, then, let’s just subtract all that FVR time from both years, arriving at 18,100 to compare to this year’s 11,000, which is still quite the spread. Let’s do some digging…
Continue readingQ1 Stats: 39% Of Input From Novellas
After sharing the strong start to the year from just the first 12 minutes of day 1, and results of a textbook comparison from the first 4 weeks, I’ve now got some stats from Quarter 1. Having arrived at the first 10 week mark of the year (36 hours), the total words read is now 6,500. But that figure isn’t really what I find most remarkable. How about the fact that 39% of the total input was read in just these last two weeks, from novellas alone…
Continue readingThe Daily Lesson Plan: Talk & Read
Teachers unaccustomed to speaking the target language in class are often a bit lost when it comes to providing input. Instead, the more familiar rule-based lectures and paired speaking activities of PPP (present, practice, produce), target culture projects, and perhaps target language movies all become quite alluring, seducing teachers back to the pedagogy of yore. Here’s a way to conceptualize class in a clearer way that maximizes input:
- Talk about something
- Read something
Now, from the student perspective, this would be “listen & read,” but the “talk” portion of class is very much led by the teacher, especially in beginning years, so it’s easier to think of this in terms of what you, the teacher, must do. Don’t get fooled by anyone thinking this is the kind of “teacher-centered” lesson that’s frowned upon. The content is student-centered, it’s just that students can’t express themselves fully in the target language. They don’t have to, and this is expected. They need input. Case closed. The “read” portion could be any reading activity, either independent, led by you, in pairs, groups, or all of the above…
Continue reading45,000 Total Words Read!
I had some time during end of the year cleaning, keeping a single copy of each co-created class text, and had fun with counting words. Those texts were also analyzed for vocab in this post. Anyway, I wrote about the solid start to the year up through 55 hours of CI, then the April update at the 100 hour mark. So, here we are at the end of the first year of Latin just 20 classes later (120 total hours of CI). Students have read on their own for 238 total minutes (just under 4 hours) of Sustained Silent Reading (SSR), and 270 minutes (4.5 hours) of Free Voluntary Reading (FVR)…
Continue reading37,000 Total Words Read!
I wrote about the solid start to the year up through 55 hours of CI. We’re now at the 100 hour mark. Students have read on their own for 187 total minutes of Sustained Silent Reading (SSR), and 150 minutes of Free Voluntary Reading (FVR)…
Continue readingRethinking MGMT: No-Prep Gradebook Evidence
Today, I greeted students at the door as usual, waiting for their class password and making a personal connection before class. When the bell rang, I went to my desk, a bit like Vanna White drawing attention to the projected “Do Now!” with the instructions to read a new text I had placed on each seat. After a minute or so, I began walking around with a clipboard marking a) who was reading, b) who wasn’t/who was talking, c) who was coming in late, and d) who was absent.
This went into the gradebook.
Continue readingUsing 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 readingWeekly MGMT Sheet Examples
Last week, I shared the process of using writing to refocus students throughout class. Here’s how I’ve used them this week…
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Magister P. 