Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Classics Halloween Link Roundup


Our October eLitterae offers a free excerpt:
the werewolf story in The Satyricon.
Looking for some spooky classics articles and blog posts to read this Halloween? Then look no further. Whether you’re interested in the strange, the arcane, or the absurd, these links should have you covered.

     The blog Sententiae Antiquae is fulfilling many of our classics Halloween needs. Some choice posts include:
      How Do You Say “Trick-or-Treat” in Latin and Greek?
      Werewolves galore! A roundup of selections dealing with versipelles (and a few other   supernatural creatures from the ancient world).

     Atlas Obscura looks into Greek funerary practices involving celery—yes, celery.

     Forbes explores how a zombie predicted the death of Julius Caesar.

     Smithsonian explains the tragic circumstances that led to a “vampire burial” in fifth-century Rome.

     Eidolon tackles the relationship between zombies and gender roles in ancient Greece.


Additionally, if you’re looking for a quick Halloween lesson for your Latin classes, make sure to check out the October issue of eLitterae. Under “Resources & Teaching Tips,” you’ll find some “Halloween teaching treats”: three free selections from Bolchazy-Carducci books!

— Amelia Wallace, Editor

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

3 First-Year Teachers Tell Their Stories: Meet M.



(For an introduction to this blog series, see our first post. To read our first two teacher profiles, click here and here.)

Memento mori! M. has enhanced her classroom
door with skeletons for Halloween.

Meet M., a first-year Latin teacher at a small private K–9 school in the metropolitan New York area. M. teaches fourth through eighth grade; her class sizes tend to be small, fewer than ten students each.

Classroom setup: M. has her own classroom; while small, it accommodates her classes well. Her tables are arranged in a square so that everyone can see one another. Because her students are younger, she wants to make sure the room seems “fun”—she has hung up posters showing Pompeii, Roman monuments, and classical art. She also has posted key Latin vocabulary for students to reference during class, including a days of the week poster illustrated using Lego scenes.

Goals: M.’s goals for the year center on organization and communication:
1. Stay organized—there are so many different things to remember in all aspects of teaching!
2. Implement effective communication with parents.
3. Learn how to use movie talks to engage students while preteaching vocabulary and target structures.

Like K., M. also hopes to maintain her work-life balance as she learns all the requirements of her new school, develops curricula for multiple grade levels, and creates a classroom community.

Methodologies and Approaches to Teaching: M. has already begun using comprehensible input (CI)
methods with her younger students. While fourth grade is more of an exploratory class featuring plenty of games and introductory activities, she is experimenting with different active Latin techniques in her fifth and sixth grade classes. Because her seventh and eighth grade students are already accustomed to a grammar-translation approach, she is maintaining a more traditional teaching style in order to avoid derailing them.

Tips and Tricks: M. highly recommends using the Facebook forum Latin Teacher Idea Exchange for inspiration when planning classes. She notes that collaboration is essential; while she is the only Latin teacher at her school, she has a group of Latin teacher friends across the country who can offer support and suggestions when needed.

Most Looking Forward To: M. is most excited about building good relationships with her new students. She is looking forward to the time when her classes know each other well enough to have inside jokes and when her students feel like they can trust and confide in her.

First Day Hook: M. didn’t have a specific means of “hooking” students on the first day of class, but rather focused on getting to know her students and using her energy—and her experience with techniques from the theater—to engage her students.

M.’s first week of school went by in a blur, challenging yet satisfying. She explains:

The first day felt like a whole week. I was utterly exhausted. The spoken Latin with the fifth and sixth graders is a blast, and they are awesome. Hearing students speaking Latin in the halls makes my day—and they aren’t doing it to impress me, I hear it off in the distance! I want to keep this up with them and improve my own spoken Latin abilities.

M.’s enthusiasm and passion for teaching is readily apparent. Good luck during the upcoming school year, M.!

—Amelia Wallace, Editor

Wednesday, October 03, 2018

3 First-Year Teachers Tell Their Stories: Meet K.


(For an introduction to this blog series, see our first post. To read our first teacher profile, click here.)



Students colored in images depicting the foundation myths of Rome.
Many chose to use whimsical color schemes; they then labeled the colors
using the Latin terms.
Meet K., a first-year Latin teacher at a public middle school in the northeast. Students at this school come from a mixture of suburban and rural areas. K. teaches two sections of Latin 1A (seventh grade) and two sections of Latin 1B (eighth grade); she also travels to the neighboring high school, where she teaches Latin 2. K. has explained some of her strategies and goals for the year, as described below.

Classroom setup: While K. has her own devoted classroom for her middle school students, she shares a classroom with two other teachers at the high school. Her middle school classroom has desks set up in pairs to facilitate group work. To brighten up her room, which lacks windows, she is using colorful bulletin board backing. She is leaving some wall space blank in hopes of decorating extensively with student projects, but has already posted a word wall as a helpful reference for students.

Goals: K. has several goals for her first year:
1. Cultivate a love of Latin and the ancient world among her students.
2. Create a classroom environment that feels safe and inclusive for all of her students.
3. Achieve a work-life balance so that she not only meets her students' needs but also attends to her own.

Methodologies and Approaches to Teaching: K. will be building off a curriculum that was already in place when she came to her school. She also will be working with the high school teacher in her district to ensure that her students are well-prepared for high school. The curriculum is fairly traditional, but she also plans to include some spoken Latin components and will read a novella with her eighth grade students.

Tips and Tricks: K. is excited to implement a variety of activities and techniques that she learned through pedagogy coursework and student teaching. To reinforce vocabulary, she likes using online tools such as Quizlet and Memrise, in addition to games such as Reverse Pictionary and charades. She also appreciates the use of word walls to ease students into speaking Latin. 

Most Looking Forward To: K. is most excited about sharing her love of the ancient world with her students. In particular, she is extremely passionate about archaeology and material culture and hopes to include both disciplines in her classes.

First Day Hook: K. presented an “About Me” PowerPoint in Latin to introduce herself to her students. She is hoping that sharing things about herself will be the first step toward encouraging a strong community in the classroom. Students also had the chance to pick animal terms as their Latin names. [editor’s note: I sincerely hope that at least one student has chosen Camelopardalis as their name]

K.’s passion for ensuring student well-being and encouraging student curiosity in the ancient world clearly comes through. Here’s to a great year, K.!

—Amelia Wallace, Editor