Latin
I have just wrapped up teaching my fourth year of Latin at White Knoll Middle School in Lexington South Carolina. In this position, I taught Novice A Latin, which was an introductory course for middle school students, plus Latin I and Latin II, high school level courses which I taught to 7th and 8th graders who had done well in Novice A. The school has a 1:1 iPad ratio, so I used various interactive tools to help students learn, including schoology, quizlet, and kahoot. Before teaching at the middle school level, I had experience as an instructor in Latin at the college level, splitting the teaching duties for the three course Latin summer sequence with my co-instructor in summer 2011. Aside from my teaching in Latin, I have also taken a variety of advanced courses in the language. Below, you will find a little bit about how I taught Latin Novice A, Latin I, Latin II, and intensive summer Latin, including sample materials. I also give a brief discussion of what texts I studied as a Latin student in undergraduate and graduate school.
This is White Knoll Middle School, where I taught from Fall 2013 to Spring 2017. Picture from lexington1.net.
Novice A: Following guidelines from my district, I presented the information in Novice A Latin in four different units: The History and Importance of Latin, Roman Families and Home Life, Roman Mythology, and Roman History.
Students learned Latin words related to school as well as the contribution of Greeks and Romans to modern learning and some basic fundamentals like what a derivative is. I created this PowerPoint to teach the students about the history of Latin and its influence on modern languages.
Students learned Latin words related to school as well as the contribution of Greeks and Romans to modern learning and some basic fundamentals like what a derivative is. I created this PowerPoint to teach the students about the history of Latin and its influence on modern languages.
latin_through_history.pptx | |
File Size: | 1352 kb |
File Type: | pptx |
This is one of the youtube videos I use to get students interested in the daily life of a Roman child. This video was created by the BBC and is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-VmbxpEFAA
In the Family and Home Life unit, in addition to beginning to learn the basics of grammar and family related vocabulary, students learned about Roman families and what life was like for children in ancient Rome. I found online readings and youtube videos to introduce students to these cultural topics, including this video posted on youtube by TED-Ed. I created this quizlet set to use in the classroom and also to allow students to study independently.
In the Mythology unit, students learned more about grammar and expanded their knowledge of vocabulary. I created simple Latin adaptations of well-known ancient myths to teach students the content of the myths while giving them practice translating paragraphs of Latin. Any word used more than once in the unit was meant for the students to memorize and I helped them with this by creating this quizlet set. I also gave the students a cultural supplement with most of the translations to help them understand the significance of the text. Below is a slightly modified version of one of the adaptations I used.
In the Mythology unit, students learned more about grammar and expanded their knowledge of vocabulary. I created simple Latin adaptations of well-known ancient myths to teach students the content of the myths while giving them practice translating paragraphs of Latin. Any word used more than once in the unit was meant for the students to memorize and I helped them with this by creating this quizlet set. I also gave the students a cultural supplement with most of the translations to help them understand the significance of the text. Below is a slightly modified version of one of the adaptations I used.
quintafabulaachillesetthetis.pdf | |
File Size: | 61 kb |
File Type: |
In the History Unit, we discussed various historical themes using Latin language slideshows that I created for the students, asking them to come up with their own translations for each slide before we discussed it as a class. I created a new quizlet for this unit as well. One of the slideshows I used, in a slightly revised form, is available below.
augustus_caesar.pptx.pptx | |
File Size: | 1398 kb |
File Type: | pptx |
Latin I: I used Ecce Romani to help frame the curriculum, using the stories and exercises from this book to help the students advance through fundamental concepts in Latin. I used quizlet to help them keep track of their vocabulary and used kahoot and schoology to monitor their progress on vocabulary and grammar. Latin I advances through Ecce Romani chapter 17, and when we finished with this in the spring, I used additional texts that I created, adapting authentic Latin texts to a basic Latin level to give the students some of the benefits of reading primary source Latin while remaining at a grammatical level that they could still understand. Glosses for often provided for new words, or the students were encouraged to practice using online Latin dictionary tools like whitaker's words. Students really enjoyed reading texts that were written by the Romans, even if they were adapted, and they especially enjoyed reading a version of Ovid's story of Pyramus and Thisbe. A slightly modified portion of my adapted Pyramus and Thisbe text is available below.
pyramusetthisberevised.pdf | |
File Size: | 30 kb |
File Type: |
Latin II: In this class, we finished the first book of Ecce Romani, progressing from chapter 18 to 27. After this, we continued with adapted authentic texts. I also encouraged the students to write more Latin of their own, having them write up mock wikipedia pages in Latin and showing them short cartoons or videos in English that they then described in Latin.
Intensive Summer Latin: The text for this class was Latin: an Intensive Course by Moreland and Fleischer. We worked through this book in the first and second course of the institute. By Latin III, my colleague and I for intensive Latin were able to give our students passages from Livy (some slightly modified) from an intermediate textbook and we brought in our own passages from other authors, taking it upon ourselves to provide the glosses. I drew on Tacitus's account of Boudicca in the Annals as well as a short passage from the Satyricon. Everything I taught in the intermediate class, I would teach again, but I would also like to get some greater diversity of sources. It should be noted, however, that the story of Boudicca makes a great segue into talk of Roman imperialism for the Roman culture portion of a Latin course. Another passage I used for sight reading was Ammianus Marcellinus book 21 chapter 16 section 18. A slightly modified version of the handout I gave in class is attached below. Note that it in a classroom setting, I would break this long sentence down by clauses and have different students do each clause.
constantius_and_christians_in_am.doc | |
File Size: | 25 kb |
File Type: | doc |
I am also committed to helping students who are interested in the culture and history involved in what we're reading pursue their interests further. To that end, I may direct students intrigued by the above reading to a page regarding Ammianus Marcellinus organized by Ian Drijvers, a top Late-Roman scholar, or a free online reproduction of the Loeb edition of the English translation.
Latin Education: Advanced
I have read a variety of sources in Latin under a number of different professors. The list of authors from which I have read includes Vergil, Livy, Suetonius, Jerome, Juvenal, and the Historiae Augustae. In pursuit of my research for my MA, I also made original translations for over twenty of Damasus' surviving inscriptions. This work will not be made public here, because I may someday pick this work back up and do not want my work to be used anonymously. However, if there is anyone interested in my opinions on various of Damasus' inscriptions, please contact me via e-mail (provided at the bottom of this page). Further, several of my research examples are informed by Damasus' texts and some of them are quoted.
[email protected]
Latin Education: Advanced
I have read a variety of sources in Latin under a number of different professors. The list of authors from which I have read includes Vergil, Livy, Suetonius, Jerome, Juvenal, and the Historiae Augustae. In pursuit of my research for my MA, I also made original translations for over twenty of Damasus' surviving inscriptions. This work will not be made public here, because I may someday pick this work back up and do not want my work to be used anonymously. However, if there is anyone interested in my opinions on various of Damasus' inscriptions, please contact me via e-mail (provided at the bottom of this page). Further, several of my research examples are informed by Damasus' texts and some of them are quoted.
[email protected]