I began with the story of Lacernella Rubra in Fabulae Mirabiles, though I modified it limit new vocabulary and to fix some of the grammatical errors (e.g. domum rather than ad domum).
In class, we started with a dictatio, which I always have kids write in their spirals. Once we got to about the second sentence of this dictatio, the students began realizing it was the story they had been requesting. (Thanks to Bob Patrick for the template I used for this.) It helped that I had defined the new word lacernam on the board for them. Even the slowest processors of the group had figured it out by sentence seven. The amazing thing was how palpable their excitement was to do this story since it was their idea.
After going over the meaning of the dictatio on the second day, we watched this video while I narrated the story in Latin, asking questions along the way to review the vocabulary and to check for understanding.
On the third day, after this quick vocabulary check, we explored the middle part of the story with this second dictatio. The most interesting thing about this one was how students reacted to the indirect statement on slide two and to the indirect question on slide seven. Many students had started to punctuate those slides with quotation marks. When they weren't present as we checked their work with the slides, I was intrigued with how they asked much deeper questions than I have had students ask before after direct grammar instruction about those structures.
On the fourth day, an administrator came to observe the lesson. We started with a quick vocabulary assessment. I've adopted the strategy this year of allowing students to go over their work with a partner seated beside them before we check as a class. I've been pleased with how this both gives students more repetitions with the Latin while also making them accountable to each other. In an end of the trimester survey, most students reported that they were more focused on mastering the language this year, and I partly attribute it to this change in practice. After the mastery check, I had students act out the story, while I narrated, asked questions, and fed them lines to say. The students continued to be engaged. We finished up the lesson with a quick Dance Party USA translation activity to review the story. I had asked my administrator to pay attention to how much of the time I spoke in Latin, and he reported that he estimated I did so 60% of the time. I was pleased with this progress as I was not speaking nearly that much Latin at this time last year; however, I am still hoping to be at about 70% consistently by the end of this year. The administrator did think that by time we got to the Dance Party USA part of the lesson, the kids were tired of translating and going over the same story. I think that part of the reason that section of the lesson fizzled because my sound board wasn't working properly, so I wasn't able to play music as effectively as I had hoped. However, I am sensitive to the fact that a lot of my Latin class is often listening to, reading or otherwise working with a text or story. This is an area I need to keep working and pondering. I know my students are gaining proficiency from reading and rereading, but I need to keep working to make sure it is never monotonous.
I wrapped up the unit with this assessment, or Celebration of Knowledge, as I call it. Two things surprised me in a good way about this assessment. First, I have begun the practice of allowing students to work with a partner on the section they identify as most challenging for them. (I pair students up after both identify the same part as challenging.) They work in a different color pen so that I can see what they did on their own versus what they can do with a partner. I've been struck by two things as I've incorporated this practice:
1. Working together with someone else who is challenged motivates students to persevere and stay engaged with the work longer.
2. Students who are my fast language processors tend to work on the assessment for the whole period without help from others.
The other thing that surprised me about this assessment was the extra credit that I gave to students for identifying the type of subjunctive clause. Many of these had been taught to students the year before, but I had never directly taught the terms "fearing clause" or "conditional." The students had asked about the fearing clause in the story during one of the many times we retold it, but I don't believe we had talked much about conditionals more than in passing. A large portion of the students could identify the use of the subjunctive, and several were about to identify the conditional and fearing class. Most importantly, at the end of the assessment period, one student came up to me and said, "I can answer all the questions, but I still don't REALLY get why these verbs are subjunctive." When I explained it was because they were secondary or subordinate in the sentence, his eyes lit up. The lightbulb had gone on.
This was certainly the most effective way that I've ever "reviewed" subjunctive clauses with kids. Their desire to hear this story made them much more eager for the lessons, and they had a much greater need to understand the grammatical structures than if I had taught them in a more direct way. - Parva
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