SALVI's Rusticatio Virginiana

Thanks to the generosity of the American Classical League scholarship committee, I had the opportunity to attend SALVI’s Rusticatio spoken Latin immersion workshop for the second time this July. My first time at Rusticatio was in 2014, thanks to a Parent Association teacher grant fund at my school, which has since been discontinued. What follows are my observations and lessons learned from both experiences, since repeated Rusticatio experiences are truly cumulative, and in no way redundant.

Upon arrival at Claymont Mansion in rural West Virginia, the quiet and solitude of the place is striking, but also intentional. The “dux,” “repititores,” (i.e. instructors) along with “sodales,” and “curatores” (i.e. support staff) greet participants warmly and casually. Though we are still speaking in English until bedtime the first evening, the nervous anticipation of the first-time participants and the excitement of the staff and returning participants is palpable. Accommodations are cozy though a bit spartan, and always with fellow participants so the immersion may continue even between programmed activities. It really is like summer camp for Latin enthusiasts.

After my first experience, I was lured back for a second time by the incredible warmth, camaraderie, and joyful attitude from the instruction staff, which filtered down to all participants. Expectation to speak or “perform” your Latin skills is minimal, and nervous participants are often treated like beginning students in order to ease the transition to a fully immersive environment.

To continue the immersion, most meals for the week are prepared with the assistance of participants on an assigned rotation, with the “coqua” and “subcoquus” overseeing and teaching “kitchen Latin” along the way. My first year I was terrified at this prospect (I do not particularly enjoy cooking), but during the meal prep I was surprised at how easy the coqua and subcoqua made the process, and I enjoyed the hands-on aspect of learning the names for utensils and foods.

The lessons I learned at Rusticatio for my pedagogical practices range from the philosophical to the practical. On the philosophical end I have internalized the importance of providing input to my students that is comprehensible and compelling. Limiting all the Latin a class reads or hears to stodgy stories about dead Roman men is rarely compelling for all but a few. I’ve learned to season the selection of Latin stories in our textbook with personal anecdotes about my life or my weekend or my dog, or through relatively simple conversation with students in the class. I have also been introduced to the concept of sheltering vocabulary but not grammar. Bombarding students with new words to learn while also learning new language structures is far more frustrating for them than being exposed to new ways to use the words they have already learned. I have also begun to shift my methods of assessment from verbatim translation to assessing their actual comprehension, often in Latin. I.e. many comprehension questions are in Latin, and their answers may be too. I do still occasionally ask for direct translation, particularly as part of an all-class reading of a story and for particularly tricky sentences or phrases, in order to check for understanding, but that’s usually as a last resort.

I have picked up a number of practical techniques and activities as well. I recall from my first Rusticatio learning methods of interactively practicing morphemes aurally and orally by establishing a comprehensible noun-verb phrase and then asking for one-word student input - a verb form - prompted by an instructor-provided noun or pronoun. I have used this method in my class in addition to or in place of grammar notes and worksheets. 

During Rusticatio this summer the “repititores” (i.e. assistant instructors) introduced a number of methods of practicing and reinforcing vocabulary which I plan to use this school year. One was a simple listing of known words by alphabet letter, an “abecedarium” As the students during the activity, we listed either words for things in sight of us at the time, or just words we know or had learned, e.g. under P, I wrote “pictura” and “phantasma.” A partner share followed, which included an element of competition as well; if one partner came up with a word the other didn’t, they got a point. Another activity included looking at a work of art (not necessarily ancient or Classical art, but could be) and choosing from a provided list of words to describe it, as well as the open option to provide our own known Latin words to describe the art.

Probably the most simplistic classroom practice that I picked up this summer (although the instruction staff did this in 2014 as well, it just hit me this summer how useful and helpful it was to me from the student’s perspective): keeping a running list of Latin words on a large-sized sticky note pad. As I talk about the weather, or my weekend, or my dog, or ask about how the students are doing, I may use Latin words or phrases that are new to the class. They aren’t going to be in any official vocabulary list in our textbook, but I still think they are good words to know and reinforce. I write the words (often with English meaning written, or a rudimentary illustration) on the large sticky note pad that hangs from my dry erase board for all the class to see. Things may get added throughout the class period, and maybe the list for a particular class continues onto a second sheet if the conversation or story goes for awhile. So far with this method, I’ve reviewed impersonal phrases like “me dolet” with my Latin 4s (upon the occasion that a student complained that his back hurt from a fall in dance class), and comparative adjectives “maior/minor” with my Latin 2s when we were talking about siblings and our age orders within our families, and many other random but useful words. By putting these ad hoc terms on the large sticky pad paper, I can keep each sheet after each class, instead of erasing it from the white board, with the intent of reinforcing these words and phrases. Students are also writing many of these words in their personal vocabulary lists that they keep in their class spirals for continued review.

Rusticatio has been a very eye-opening and mind-changing experience for me. The first year was much about simply changing my overall mindset about how to approach the teaching of Latin, and I’ve been on a journey since then. My second time this summer I was acquiring and refining the applications for my new mindset of teaching Latin. It’s also important, as it is for any language, for its teachers to simply have the experience of speaking and living in the language, even if it’s just for six days. Thanks to my time at Rusticatio I feel much more confident launching into a story, or discussing a Latin passage, or asking questions about a story in our target language during class time, all of which provides more input of the language for the students.

--Lauren Dill

For more information about upcoming "Rusticationes" and "Bidua" (Latin immersion weekends) visit SALVI's website.

Grex Latinus: Encouraging Community and Leadership

As a Latin teacher who grew up in the Junior Classical League (JCL) herself, starting a chapter was a no brainer for me.  However, when I first came to my school there was no formal or officer structure.   Then, when expanded to start an upper school, I found myself in that same boat again.  Both times I chose to create a leadership structure for our club, partly because that was familiar to me from my own experience.  However, someone recently asked me to post about our Latin club leadership structure, and reflecting on why we are doing what we are doing has been good.

Why Do this Work

First, let me address why I believe that being a part of JCL is important for my students.  I want my students to understand that what we do in Latin class is connected to the outside world in a panoply of ways.  As a matter of fact, we have a requirement that each trimester our students find away to connect to the outside Latin community.  JCL is an easy way for my students to fulfill this requirement (though not the only way).  Additionally, the JCL organization (especially on the local and state level) is student-run.  By its very nature JCL is student-driven.  Additionally, the officers who run this organization get some of the best leadership training I’ve ever seen or experienced.  Finally, collaborating with other teachers and students through JCL has been an important part of my own professional development over the years.

Our Club:  The Early Years

When I first started our upper school club, the students and I established leadership positions for the organization that made sense according to what we wanted to accomplish:

·      Senior Consul:  basically serves as President, running meetings and following up on plans.

·      Junior Consul:  takes minutes and runs meetings when the President is absent.

·      Proconsul:  plans activities surrounding our trips to conventions.

·      Quaestor:  serves as treasurer.

·      Senatores:  represent each Latin class on the Latin Club Senate.

Unlike my own club experience (and the state and national organizations), I wanted to use Latin names for our club positions to reinforce the language and cultural concepts from class. 

Because of their exposure to the state JCL organization, our new officers wanted to write their own constitution and bylaws.  I hadn’t anticipated them wanting to do this, but I loved the idea of them establishing their own governing documents.  The many meetings that led to the final product took a great deal of time, but the students learned a lot from thinking deliberately through the organization and its functioning.  I wasn’t sure how long these documents would last, but definitely wanted to encourage their work.

Twenty Years Later

It has now been twenty years since our club was originally established.  We are still using the constitution and bylaws written by my early students, though they have been revised several times by the students who have followed.   I believe the documents specify a revision every five years or so, though I hope there will be a future change to revise them every four years so that all students will have the opportunity to participate in constitutional revisions during their high school experience.

In the ensuing years, we’ve also added a couple of other positions:  Historicus/Historica Libri and Historicus/Historica Peregrinus/Peregrina.  Both offices were established to take care of perceived needs.  The Historicus Libri makes our club scrapbook and enters it at JCL conventions.  Our Historica Peregrina was added to handle promotional and social media duties in addition to planning community service projects for the group. 

Conclusions

My commitment to continuing to foster student leadership through the Latin Club at my school is stronger than ever.  Students are expected to be leaders – often without any training or direction about what that means.  I am proud that we started this year with an officer retreat just before school started and that part of that retreat was a discussion of how to lead.  I firmly believe that the leadership training that students get through JCL is an important part of what we do, and I think it is important that we share that work with prospective Latin students. 

Additionally, the community that JCL fosters among Latin student beyond our school walls has been an important networking tool for my students that I see benefitting them during their college years and beyond.  Coming from a small school means that these connections are sometimes even more important.  I’ve seen tough adjustments to large universities made easier by meeting up with friends they knew through JCL. 

For these reasons and more I’ll continue sponsoring JCL and working to encourage student leadership and ownership over our chapter. - Parva

tempestas

salvete!

I recently had the opportunity to read Zaretta Hammond's book Culturally Responsive Teaching & the Brain. (Here's a link to some of her resources.) In her Ready for Rigor framework, she talks about classroom rituals and routines that can prime students for learning and create positive classroom culture. I was thinking about my own classes and how I don't really have set classroom routines. I usually have students complete a "Do Now" activity that is written on the board, but it usually involves short, independent practice over something we've been working on in class. It's not much of a ritual, and it doesn't do much beyond review the previous day's lesson.

I've read about some daily and weekly rituals that other Latin teachers do, and I was recently especially impressed with Miriam Patrick's post about hers. Her post about the weather was especially appealing to me. At my new school, I don't have my own classroom, so it would be very helpful if my daily ritual was a low- or no-prep/prop activity. The weather, obviously, is always available and more or less accessible to the eye in every room (there are four!) where I teach. I like, also, that the grammar for discussing the weather can be simple enough for my 6th grade IA students or complex enough for my Latin II's without me needing to modify the materials.

So, I developed this handout with a list of common weather vocabulary. It's adapted from the chapter about weather in Traupman. I first introduced a shorter list of new words with this slideshow of images and captions. I plan to begin each class day with a discussion of today's weather here in Austin until students are comfortable with the routine and then add discussions of other places via images. Eventually, I'm going to have students write captions for these 14 images in Latin in pairs as a class activity.

I already do a lot of Picture Talk activities in my classes, so adding weather vocabulary to my students' bank of words should be great. I'm also hoping that it will structure the beginning of class (perhaps after that daily Do Now activity) as a time of speaking and hearing Latin.

What do you do as a ritual or routine in your classroom? Have you tried a daily or weekly discussion of the weather? How'd it go?

- Ashley Schneider

Goals for 2018-2019

My department chair encouraged me to share a few personal professional goals for this academic year, so I thought I'd share them here:

These are all ongoing goals that I've had for much of my teaching career, but they remain central to my focus this year.
(In no particular order)


1. To improve my Latin speaking and writing fluency and improve my listening comprehension. This is a goal because I wish to be able to facilitate class discussion in Latin with greater ease. I know that, at some level, my students' range of input is limited to what they read in the textbook and what I am able to produce (write and speak). I plan to work on these skills by listening to Latin podcasts (shoutout to Quomodo Dicitur!), committing to writing passages in Latin that are interesting and relatable to my students, and (hopefully) attending at least one immersive Latin conference this year.


2. To plan and implement lessons that are engaging to ALL learners in my classroom. This goal is important because without lessons that have understandable and interesting content and activities that make all students participate, class time is boring (for all) and requires the use of discipline measures to make students comply. I hope to work toward this goal by paying attention to student interests, integrating technology, and holding space for each student to have a voice in the classroom. I am always open to new ideas and am eager to hear about what works well in other classes.


3. To facilitate a collaborative department culture with the colleagues in my department. I have mostly been a "lone wolf" at my previous school campuses. I was usually either the only (or, at BASIS, the only experienced) Latin teacher on my campus and have sought out collaboration and mentorship from a variety of sources. This year, I hope to be an engaged colleague, learn from the other Latin teachers in my department, and share insight from my own experience. I know that I have much to learn from both members of my department about different aspects of teaching and school life, and I look forward to developing a positive culture in our department. I know that I benefit from clear, direct communication and face-to-face interaction. Meeting with my colleagues once per 7-day schedule rotation will help us to work well together.

What are your goals for this year? I'd love to hear about them!

An Update from Across Town

Hello! I hope your first days or weeks of school are off to a great start! I wanted to write a short post today to give a little information about the new position that I have taken on this year.

I left St. Andrew's, where I used to teach with Parva and Situla, to join the faculty at St. Stephen's Episcopal School. My position here is different in many ways. I'm teaching three sections in the Middle School (Latin IA, IB, and II) and one in the Upper School (Latin I). The chair of the Classics Department is now teaching 7th grade English, and he will be mentoring me to assume his chair position in a year or so. The teachers at this school have used primarily the traditional Grammar/Translation (GT) approach and use Oxford Latin Course. I have never used Oxford and hadn't even read the textbooks until this summer as I was preparing for classes.

I plan to begin my year with more G/T than CI, since it's what the veteran students are familiar with and it's how the materials in our shared resources folder are written. With 4 preps, I won't have a lot of time to write new lessons that adapt each chapter of Oxford to fit with a hybrid G/T-CI approach like I did with Cambridge in the past. I also want the students to feel a sense of success and progress as they begin a new year, and I think that moving to a heavy CI-style of teaching would throw them off.

My Latin IA class, which is comprised of 8 sixth graders, will be the place that I plan to implement CI the most this year. The curriculum that I inherited doesn't use Oxford in Latin IA, so it is very open to student/teacher interest. The students will take the National Exploratory Latin Exam and the National Mythology Exam in the spring. Their previous teacher used Latin is Fun with this class last year, and I also plan to use this text as a source of vocabulary and grammar concepts, but there's no pressure to move at any particular pace or in any particular order. Latin IA is the class I'm most excited about, as it offers the most freedom.

I'm planning to use an Interactive Notebook with my Latin IA class so they can organize their vocabulary, writings, drawings, and grammar notes all in one place. I would love tips and ideas from other teachers who use Interactive Notebooks or Journals with their students!


Oh, and one final note about the challenges of this year: for the first time after 7 years of teaching, I am now a traveling teacher! I will teach all 4 of my classes in 4 different rooms.  This is going to be so challenging for me. I'm working on developing systems of digital record keeping in place of paper systems I've used in the past, and I'm relying extensively on Google Classroom to post assignments. It's going to be a year of growth!

Novus annus, novi status

When we started this blog two years ago, the three of us (Situla, Magistra K, and I) talked about wanting to use this blog to share teaching ideas with each other as we experimented with a variety of things including injecting more comprehensible input into our lessons.  At that point, we were all working for the same school, but on different campuses.  We realized that we all had a lot to learn together and from each other.  We also knew that our situations might eventually change, and we committed to the idea that we would still be willing to blog together come what may.

Things have changed a great deal in the last two years for us, and now the Triumfeminate is separating to teach in two different schools.  The change has caused me to start thinking about all that's changed and all that has stayed the same, so here's a list of a few of those things:

1.  As mentioned earlier, our Latin Department was absorbed into a larger languages department.  As predicted, that made it a bit harder for the three of us to collaborate - in addition to causing other turmoil.  Now, we'll be at two separate schools which will make it even more difficult to merge schedules, etc.

2.  All three of us have been through changes in our personal life, which always impacts your professional life in a job like teaching.  Speaking for myself, my home life has changed a great deal as I sent my first child off to college.  I think that change in the end made me a better teacher, but it does sometimes feel that my life and family are more scattered.

3.  Our professional lives have changed in various ways with shifting duties and responsibilities.

4. These changes have made it hard for us to maintain our commitment to posting every few weeks.  However, our desire to maintain the connection between us has made us recommit to each of us trying to share something about our practice at least once a month.

5.  Nothing has changed in terms of the respect and admiration we have for each other.  We still have lots to learn from each other and hope to use this forum as a way to do that - in addition to sharing our journey with others.

So, we start this new school year in ever changing circumstances, but I for one am recommitted to the idea of sharing and learning together.  And, I feel so lucky to be sharing this journey with two other amazing women.  - Parva

Curriculum Audit Recommendations

I'm finally getting back to posting the findings from the Latin Department curriculum audit done during the spring of 2017, and I'm hoping that this will be the start of more regular posting on my part.  Although the trimfeminate is splitting now between two schools, my hope is that we'll use this blog to keep up with what we are each doing now that we'll be a bit more distant.

So here the the follow-up recommendations to go along with the other post about the findings of the audit:

Recommendations

Recommendation 1:  Issues of curriculum and pacing.  As the Latin program has been working to incorporate new research about CI into the curriculum and moving away from a solely grammar-translation method of teaching Latin, it has opened up broad questions about pacing, scope, and sequence of curriculum.  The department has a relatively young group of teachers who need time set aside for collaborating as they work to innovate their curriculum. 

Next year, the Latin Department will be absorbed in the Modern Language Department.  One danger in this is that the Latin teachers may have less time set aside to do the work of collaborating and developing the Latin curriculum.  One teacher mentioned that she felt that she needed more guidance in developing the curriculum for the classes she is responsible for teaching.  It will be essential for the Latin teachers to find time and ways to continue to work together to ensure the mentoring of less experienced teachers and to work on curriculum alignment.  

(Note:  we have definitely experienced the problem of having less time set aside for collaborating with each other.  This problem will continue to be an issue, especially as we work to incorporate a new member of our department.)

Recommendation 2:  Professional development.  The Latin teachers are experts in their field and have shown a real willingness to innovate their teaching practices.  Because of the way Latin has traditionally been taught in this country with a focus on reading skills, it is important for Latin teachers to improve their listening and speaking skills in order to incorporate more modern techniques for second language acquisition.  One of the Latin teachers mentioned that she had been discouraged from attending a spoken Latin conference more than once because of the financial commitment involved in sending her.  As these spoken Latin colloquia are the most effective places to hone fluency for Latin teachers, more money should be allotted for the Latin teachers to attend immersion opportunities.  Regular attendance at spoken Latin conferences is important for maintaining and increasing fluency. 

Additionally, the Latin teachers can hone their fluency through other, less expensive means.  Listening to some of the many podcasts now offered in Latin would be a low-cost way to boost listening comprehension.  The Latin teachers at St. Andrew’s can also be leaders in helping the local and state organizations incorporate more opportunities for both teachers and students to hear and speak Latin.  The teachers should work to find creative ways to use the Latin community in Austin to boost their students’ and their own skills in hearing and speaking language.  

(Note:  this summer two members of our department were funded to attend SALVI's Rusticatio, and we are excited about that.  Hopefully, we can follow up with a post on their experiences.)

Recommendation 3:  Adding images and stories of diversity to the curriculum.  To many, the ancient Greco-Roman world appears to be one full of white, marble statues.  However, often the cultural artifacts that teachers show students give them an incorrect impression about ancient statues that were typically painted and colorful when ancient people viewed them.  “Romans had a great variety of skin tones within their Mediterranean world” (Bond, 2017).  The teachers in the Latin program should make an effort when possible to show students modern reconstructions of ancient marbles and bronzes that have color reapplied.  Additionally, paintings from the all over the ancient world, including those from Roman Egypt, do a much better job of showing the wide variety of skin tones in the ancient world.   Finally, the teachers should seek out images that depict other ethnicities from the ancient world, besides the Romans.  As Bond (2017) points out, “[Classicists] have known for a long time that we have a diversity problem, and one way to address this might be to emphasize what an integral part people of color played within ancient Mediterranean history.”  The teachers in the St. Andrew’s program might want to set up a shared Google drive folder to collect and share the images they find to make sure a variety of skin tones are reflected in the images they use in class.

The Latin teachers should also deliberately work to bring other ethnicities, besides the Romans, into Latin class.  Whenever Dido, Hannibal, Septimius Severus, Darius, or any of the other various non-Roman leaders can be brought into the curriculum, they should, and the teacher should take special care to mention their ethnic backgrounds.  Additionally, teachers should work to make sure they are bringing in images that reflect the diversity of the St. Andrew’s student body and greater Austin community regularly in class.  This could be through a regular “Quid non accidit hodie?” (“What didn’t happen on this day?”) daily trivia quiz with pictures or through a unit on important African-American classicists.  Students could be assigned to make children’s books in Latin based on important figures in world history, which would give students the opportunity to study the lives of influential people of color.  Whatever strategy is used, there should be deliberate attempts to bring more images and stories of people of diverse backgrounds into the Latin curriculum.  

(Note:  I developed a unit on diversity and privilege in the ancient world for my Latin 3 class that was successful this year.  I used some of these diverse images from the ancient world.  The students seemed to be interested and enjoy it.)

Recommendation 4:  Cross-curricular work.  Latin is an area of study that connects to almost every other curricular area taught in a school.  One surveyed student mentioned that he wished he had always been able to recognize the Latin phrases that come up in other classes.  The Latin teachers should work with the other teachers at the school to identify instances of Greco-Roman culture and the Latin language that pertain to other courses at the school.  Then the Latin teachers should make an effort to make cross-curricular connections for their own students and to plan lessons to enhance the other curricula at the school that pertain to the ancient world or to the Latin language itself.  This outreach would help both faculty and students understand the relevance of Latin in the modern world.  

(Note:  this is an area of my focus for the 2018-2019 school year.  I've already emailed the upper school faculty to ask for areas where I can support their curricula and where we might be able to collaborate more.)

Recommendation 5:  Recruitment.  There is a clear need for incoming students to be better informed about what the Latin program has to offer.  One parent stated, “The Latin program is the best thing about St. Andrew’s.  I can’t think of any other program at St. Andrew’s that is so all-encompassing.  The problem seems to be lack of interest coming up.”    The parent continued by voicing concerns about how hard it was for students to make the choice to take Latin knowing that it might isolate them socially.  To some degree, this is an issue of making sure that all students have equitable access to knowledge about the Latin language.  One administrator noted, that the Latin teachers were “dealt a tough hand with Latin, trying to keep Latin interesting with kids and compelling for kids in the 21^st Century.”  He added that, “[Latin] is compelling to lots of kids who wouldn’t think it would be so.” Because of the fact that education in the Latin language used to be an exclusive privilege for a few and because of the fact that Latin for so long was taught with a grammar-translation approach making the language accessible to a limited group of students, many families need to be educated about the fact that the St. Andrew’s Latin program is both inclusive and compelling to a wide range of students.  The Latin teachers should partner with the admissions team to find opportunities to educate parents and incoming students about the reasons for and benefits of studying Latin as their language choice.  Special emphasis should be made on the diversity of the ancient world and the connections between the ancient and modern worlds in government, literature, language, and art.  Raising awareness of the richness and inclusive nature of the Latin curriculum should be a priority. 

Conclusion

            The vibrant and active Latin program at St. Andrew’s does a good job of preparing its students to be culturally responsive members of the global community.  The teachers are committed to their craft and to making Latin a place where all students, regardless of background or ability, feel welcome and wanted.  Although there is work to be done in continuing to innovate the curriculum and to broaden the reach of the program, the students who are in Latin classes are served well.  - Parva

References

Bond, S. (2017, April 27). Whitewashing ancient statues: Whiteness, racism, and color in the ancient world. Retrieved April 30, 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/drsarahbond/2017/04/27/whitewashing-ancient-statues-whiteness-racism-and-color-in-the-ancient-world/#5fead26375ad