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Thursday, October 28, 2021

One Word at a Time - Pass and Tell

This is an activity which I just recently learned from Emma Vanderpool, a fellow Latin teacher, and it is based on Bob Patrick's One Word at a Time (OWAT) activity. Emma modified this as a pre-reading activity to introduce new vocabulary, which is the original intent of an OWAT. However, I made some changes and used it as a pre-writing activity to prepare students for a free write and therefore used known vocabulary. Here are directions for either use:

Pre-Reading (to introduce new, targeted vocabulary) - here are Emma's directions

  1. Students should sit in columns.
  2. Every student has a piece of paper. Inform students that they will cooperatively write a 6-sentence story. 
  3. A new target word is projected on the board. The students must use that word in a sentence to begin the story.

  4. Students then pass the piece of paper to the student behind them, and a new word is projected on the board.

  5. The receiver should read the sentence(s) written, illustrate the latest sentence, and then write a new sentence to the story.

  6. The paper should be passed 6 times

Pre-Writing (to prepare students for a writing. This uses known vocabulary) - these are my directions

  1. Students should sit in columns in groups of 4.
  2. Every student has a piece of paper. Inform students that they will cooperatively write a 8-sentence story. 
  3. Two known words are projected on the board. The students must choose ONE of the words to create a sentence to begin the story. Here are my Google Slides which I projected
  4. Students then pass the piece of paper to the student behind them, and a new choice of words is projected on the board. 
  5. The receiver should read the sentences written, illustrate the latest sentence, and then write a new sentence to the story. 
  6. The paper should be passed 8 times. 
  7. Spend around 4 minutes for each slide. In the beginning, students probably will not need 4 minutes, but as more sentences are added, they will need that time to read over what has already been written and to have time to figure out what to add.
Observations 
  1. It was fun for students to read their "stories" afterwards and to see where the stories went based on their original sentence.
  2. Giving students a choice of known words for a pre-writing activity allowed for more variety in creating their sentences, BUT I will also try this out with giving new words one at a time like in a regular OWAT to see how it works in previewing vocabulary.
  3. Although the stories became rather random, the stories still made sense to a degree!
  4. Making students use a particular word(s) for their sentences gave them parameters but still gave them a degree of freedom in how to use that word(s).
  5. This activity requires critical thinking, because students not only have to understand what they read but they have to create a new sentence on their own which will continue on with what has been previously written.

Wednesday, October 20, 2021

Horse and Puppy (Budweiser Super Bowl Commercial) - Movie Talk

This is a special movie talk for me, because it was the first one which was demonstrated to me where the purpose of a movie talk made full sense to me! At the 2016 IFLT in Chattanooga, I saw Katya Paukova demo a movie talk in Russian using this specific commercial, and because I was experiencing it like a student, suddenly, I understood its power! Katya said that the best movie talks are those which appeal to the emotions, and this one certainly will give you the feels. It is a Budweiser commercial from the 2015 Super Bowl involving a man, a puppy, and a Clydesdale horse (the Budweiser mascot). Although the commerical is only 58 seconds, it packs in a lot of emotion!

For Latin 3, I adapted this commercial, because I needed to preview such "odd" words as wander, (to) here and there, have fear, and far away. I had previously used this commercial in Latin 1 to preview words such as home, sad, happy, and afraid, so I was able to manipulate what I scripted before in Latin 1 to meet my Latin 3 needs.

NOTE - the actual commercial ends at 0:58 but is replayed for the remainder of the video


Latin script

Observations

  1. Even though this commercial is only 58 seconds, I was able to get a good 30 minutes as a movie talk in narrating, pointing/pausing, asking processing questions, and using PQAs.
  2. You may need to explain how this commercial relates to Budweiser, since students asked me: Budweiser Super Bowl commercials traditionally spotlight their Clydesdale mascot and not the beer itself (thankfully). Warning - the man is holding a Budweiser bottle in his hand at the very end prior to the Budweiser logo so you may want to end the movie talk before that. 
  3. There is another Budweiser Super Bowl commercial involving the puppy, horse, and man. The previous year in 2014, the commercial was about how the puppy, man, and horse first met, and how the puppy brought about a love connection for the man. I do not know what happened to the woman in the 2015 commercial - did the relationship not work out but yet the man kept the dog? Did the woman tragically pass away? Is the woman on vacation in the 2015 commercial? I like the 2015 commercial much better!
Thank you, Katya, for introducing me to how a movie talk should be done through this commerical!