Saturday, November 14, 2009

Whimsy

This is a whimsical blog - I only ever post on a whim. I feel a tiny bit bad that this blog hasn't been favored by my whimsy in over two months.

Only a tiny bit bad, mind you, because the last eighty-three days have been profitably occupied. The first trimester of my second year teaching is almost over. First, though, I have two sets of tests, three sets of quizzes, and seventy-one character comments to finish. Then I get to go home for Thanksgiving! Our school has a full week off for Thanksgiving this year, and provided that I finish everything in time, I can spend it all in Tennessee.

Last Saturday I drove with a couple of other Latin teachers from my school up to Dickinson College in Pennsylvania to a workshop on ways to incorporate "active" methods for teaching Latin. Those include not only conversational Latin ("hello", "how are you doing", etc.) but also spoken grammar exercises, text exposition, and drama.

As our instructors presented each of these exercises, they had us participate in each one. At the end of the day we read an original Latin paragraph on Christopher Columbus, written by the Spanish bishop Juan Gines de Sepulveda. After reading it, we were divided into groups and told to come up with short skits dramatizing the paragraph we had just read.

Ours was about a fictional sycophant tattling on the rest of the sailors - who were homesick and scared and ready to commit mutiny and go home - to Columbus, who then comes to the sailors and tries to convince them to keep sailing west.

Someone at the workshop managed to videotape most of it and posted it here on YouTube. I think it's funny enough, even if you can't understand what's going on. It was even difficult for me, knowing Latin, to understand everything. I showed the video to all my students on Friday, and after watching it several times throughout the course of the day I was just beginning to get a grasp on everything that was said (except my lines, of course).

So that's part of what's been keeping me busy. As always, I'll try to post more frequently. Hope you're all doing well!

3 comments:

Emily J said...

There are actually deeper reasons why I hate The Nutcracker specifically.

But mainly, I hate *watching* people dance. I really do appreciate the practice and athleticism that goes into any dance performance, but I have absolutely no interest in watching it.

Anna said...

I find it very exciting that the latin-speaking community is trying to revive latin as a spoken language. Well, as far as the classroom goes, anyway. Do you suppose the one-world-government people have thought about using latin as the universal language?

Laurelin said...

For the record, I absolutely ADORE the word "whimsy." Well done, Katie.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Whimsy

This is a whimsical blog - I only ever post on a whim. I feel a tiny bit bad that this blog hasn't been favored by my whimsy in over two months.

Only a tiny bit bad, mind you, because the last eighty-three days have been profitably occupied. The first trimester of my second year teaching is almost over. First, though, I have two sets of tests, three sets of quizzes, and seventy-one character comments to finish. Then I get to go home for Thanksgiving! Our school has a full week off for Thanksgiving this year, and provided that I finish everything in time, I can spend it all in Tennessee.

Last Saturday I drove with a couple of other Latin teachers from my school up to Dickinson College in Pennsylvania to a workshop on ways to incorporate "active" methods for teaching Latin. Those include not only conversational Latin ("hello", "how are you doing", etc.) but also spoken grammar exercises, text exposition, and drama.

As our instructors presented each of these exercises, they had us participate in each one. At the end of the day we read an original Latin paragraph on Christopher Columbus, written by the Spanish bishop Juan Gines de Sepulveda. After reading it, we were divided into groups and told to come up with short skits dramatizing the paragraph we had just read.

Ours was about a fictional sycophant tattling on the rest of the sailors - who were homesick and scared and ready to commit mutiny and go home - to Columbus, who then comes to the sailors and tries to convince them to keep sailing west.

Someone at the workshop managed to videotape most of it and posted it here on YouTube. I think it's funny enough, even if you can't understand what's going on. It was even difficult for me, knowing Latin, to understand everything. I showed the video to all my students on Friday, and after watching it several times throughout the course of the day I was just beginning to get a grasp on everything that was said (except my lines, of course).

So that's part of what's been keeping me busy. As always, I'll try to post more frequently. Hope you're all doing well!

3 comments:

Emily J said...

There are actually deeper reasons why I hate The Nutcracker specifically.

But mainly, I hate *watching* people dance. I really do appreciate the practice and athleticism that goes into any dance performance, but I have absolutely no interest in watching it.

Anna said...

I find it very exciting that the latin-speaking community is trying to revive latin as a spoken language. Well, as far as the classroom goes, anyway. Do you suppose the one-world-government people have thought about using latin as the universal language?

Laurelin said...

For the record, I absolutely ADORE the word "whimsy." Well done, Katie.