Sunday, February 27, 2005

Note to Self

7th graders need to turn in two rough drafts before the final draft. It would also be a good idea to have them set up a time to meet with me so that I can go over the second rough draft with them before they start working on the final. It will definitely take more of my time, but the purpose is to train them to be diligent and write well, right?

Wish List

Another book on my Latin teacher wish list is Spend the Day in Ancient Rome by Linda Honan. It is an activity book to use with elementary students (though I think some of the activities would certainly be good for 7th and 8th graders as well) studying Latin and the Romans. This would be a good resource for our school to have to pass around for the elementary teachers. It would also be good to have on hand for parents to use to add to what their students are learning in class. List price $12.95, $9.71 from Amazon online.

Saturday, February 26, 2005

Jenney's First Year Latin - Ch 24

Study Ch 24 vocabulary here.

Latin Haiku

I remember studying about Haiku in middle school, but it didn't make much of an impact on me. Now, as I have read haiku more recently, I think it could be useful in my classroom. There's a book called Tonight They All Dance published by Bolchazy-Carducci. Latin teacher Ginny Lindzey has written a review of it here. We write cinquains and diamontes, but it would be nice to have a completely different type of poem for variety.

While there are a number of "guidelines" for writing haiku (mostly having to do with the themes chosen, etc.), it seems the basic idea of a haiku is to have three lines of 5-7-5 syllables. The examples in the book are really neat in that, for the most part, the haiku fit the 5-7-5 pattern both in Latin and in English and are translated equally well in both.

Wish List

38 Latin Stories Teacher's Guide to accompany the student text I already have. It would save a lot of time. And it's only $6.

The Elementary Latin Translation Book would also be very nice to use in class. It would be an excellent way to practice specific grammatical points without having to rely on disconnected sentences provided in the book. $18

Pope John XXIII's Reasons for Learning Latin

Pope John XXIII gave a number of reasons for learning Latin.

Primary Sources

Fordham University seems to be a good place to find primary sources. Some of the links to external sites are dead, but the sources found on their site are useful.

As a Latin teacher, I really wish there were a book or resource that could give a good overview of how to teach Latin classically. It seems like my two years of teaching have been largely trial and error. I have been making progress, but it seems like there needs to be a better, faster (wow... have I bought into American thinking so much that I now want the microwave meal equivalent of experience, too?) way to learn what I need to in order to teach my students the way that I ought to. As a teacher, I know that students do not learn by being fed information. It takes seeking, digging, ingesting, and digesting information to make a real student and lover of learning. So I know that just as it won't work for me to tell my students the information they need to know, it won't work for someone else to tell me the information I need to know. Experience comes from trying, literally. (etym: Experience<experiens<experior, to try, endure Lat.)