Extensive Reading

I have been reflecting much on my Fluency Fast experience from last summer with the absolutely incredible Linda Li. I am amazed at the amount of Mandarin which I acquired through numerous activities and readings during those four days. Something which stands out to me from that 4-day class is that although we did lots of reading, Linda did not have us do any embedded readings. Instead, we focused on lots of various extensive readings - different stories which had much of the same limited vocabulary. Extensive reading allowed us to "circle the plane a bit" in various readings to focus on vocabulary/structures which we already knew; hence, we received continued reinforcement and repetitions of vocabulary/structures. Because there were different stories, it allowed for the readings to be compelling. As a class, through these extensive readings, we were receiving continued understandable messages through repetitions of vocabulary without being repetitive.

This is NOT to say that embedded readings do not have their place, because I firmly believe that they do. I am NOT saying that one is better than the other, as both do indeed serve their purposes in the delivery of understandable messages. However, in doing these different extensive readings in Mandarin, it helped keep things from becoming stale, instead of focusing on different tiers of the same story. And I can tell you that it got in the necessary repetitions which I needed.To quote Carol Gaab, "The brain craves novelty."

Reading (not translating/decoding) plays such an important part in language acquisition. As Krashen writes:

“Our reading ability, our ability to write in an acceptable writing style, our spelling ability, vocabulary knowledge, and our ability to handle complex syntax is the result of reading.”

Allow me an excursus here to define terms and to distinguish between extensive readings and intensive readings:

• extensive readings - tend to focus on the use of limited known vocabulary but not necessarily the grammatical use of this limited vocabulary. These types of readings are not typically found in textbooks but tend to focus on pleasure reading.
• intensive readings - tend to focus on a limited use of grammatical structures but uses an overwhelming amount of vocabulary (usually with lots of glossed words). This is the type of readings commonly found in textbooks, since textbooks usually are grammar/structure-dictated. How many times have we asked students to read a passage or story in the textbook which is way overloaded with vocabulary, which in turn results in student frustration? That is the result of most intensive readings.

Even if you think that extensive readings would be too easy for your students, since they have already acquired the words, consider that when we read for pleasure, we tend to read material which is BELOW our reading level; rarely do we read material at or above our reading level for pleasure. Plus, one can NEVER get in too many repetitions of acquired vocabulary/structures if the reading is compelling.

In my Latin 2 classes, we are reading the Perseus myth (level-appropriate reading), so last week, I introduced the fourth part of the story (as a screencast video) as an extensive reading without any new vocabulary (there were a few "icing" words/structures which were glossed but not necessary for students to know yet). I was surprised at how quickly students were able to read it and to comprehend what they read. When I asked students why, they replied "It was not that hard - we knew all of the words." I felt like responding, "Then good...my master plan is working."

How to create extensive readings
Extensive readings are actually not that difficult to create, but they require having a set list of vocabulary from which to draw and a good eye from you as the teacher for lesson planning.

1. Determine a point in your curriculum where you want to "circle the plane a bit" and to focus on a set amount of acquired vocabulary/structures. Sometimes, it may be necessary to gloss vocabulary if needed for the reading, but do not go overboard with this.
2. Just start writing a story using words from the list. It is possible to be compelling with a set amount of sheltered vocabulary words. Dr. Seuss proved this with Green Eggs and Ham, which only has 50 unique words in the entire book. Yet, it is still incredibly compelling, and consider how many repetitions there are in the story!
3. Extensive readings do not have to be long, i.e., they do not have to be novellas! They just need to be comprehensible and compelling! I do not think that I could ever write a novella, because although I can write in a compelling manner, I cannot maintain it beyond a very short vignette. I truthfully tell my students that if the reading ends with someone exploding, it meant that either I became bored while writing it or I could not figure out where to go next.
4. Extensive reading can actually serve as great supplements for textbook readings, since textbooks have a set list of words for each chapter. Just do not feel the need for students to acquire every single word on that list - pick high frequency words, and implement Carrie Toth's Chuck-It Bucket process.
5. Latin teachers, if you are using a reading approach textbook with stories, extensive readings are GREAT for creating new stories involving those characters. When I was using Cambridge Latin Course, I would write up short extensive readings about various characters, such as what really happened to Grumio after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius; a short, "Hannah Montana-inspired" 3-part story called Stella Metella; and a story about why Quintus drinks so much in the triclinio and how the family eventually holds an intervention. Just be careful about putting these readings on the web, since that is a violation of textbook copyright...
6. To me, extensive readings would be great for Free Voluntary Reading (FVR)/Silent Student Reading (SSR) if you had a library of these types of readings from which for students to choose.

John Piazza, a fellow CI Latin teacher in CA, just recently had an article published in Teaching Classical Languages which addresses Beginner Latin Novels. In it, he also discusses extensive reading vs. intensive reading. Even if you are not a Latin teacher, it is a very good read!

Embedded Reading, part 2

This is part 2 of a series on Embedded Reading.


An earlier post ended with a dilemma regarding Embedded Reading. During the 6th week of 1st semester, in one of my Latin III classes, we had just finished reading version #1 of a story from the textbook and now I was ready for the class to read version #2 of that embedded reading, a slightly more difficult version but still readable and comprehensible. When I told the class this, one of my students yelled out, "Again? It really was not that interesting the first time we read it!'

And he was 100% correct. Though the reading was comprehensible and understandable, one incredibly necessary factor had been left out: the story itself was not compelling, i.e. the plot was not interesting enough to keep students' attention. Noted CI/TPRS writer and presenter Carol Gaab says, "COMPELLING input is just as important as COMPREHENSIBLE input." So I found myself in a dilemma: I wanted students to read in a scaffolded manner, but what to do since, even though the stories were now easier to read, students found the stories themselves boring? 

Meanwhile, at the same time, I found that students really liked the short stories which I had written as dictationes (I will admit, I have a weird sense of humor. And since in a dictatio, I am trying to force rather random vocabulary words in a story for the purpose of previewing those words in a context, the story itself seems rather random yet compelling). A number of students truly began to ask for the "back story" and wanted me to "fill in the gaps" about some of the characters and plot, and quite honestly, I had never thought of doing anything further with the plots in dictationes. Plus, with a dictatio, I was bound by keeoing the plot to 8-9 sentences - what if I were to expand the dictatio into a form of embedded reading?

So there began my own experiment with embedded readings - what if the dictatio itself served as version #1 of the story, and version #2 expanded upon the dictatio, with the actual sentences of the dictatio embedded in it, and the final version had version #2 embedded in it? if this were the case, then the compelling factor would have to be the new parts of the plot which students hopefully were anticipating?

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, what I was wanting to do was actually part of what Embedded Readings are! New details are added in subsequent versions, because 

1. students are ready to read longer versions after reading shorter versions and 
2. the new information is what keeps the various versions compelling. 

Even though I had come to this conclusion on my own, I felt so much better when I learned this and that I was not going "rogue" by doing this experiment. So Laurie Clarcq and Michelle Whaley (co-developers of this strategy), embedded readings have been verified by an outside independent source!

Essentially, there are two different types of Embedded Reading: 

From the Top Down - this is taking a longer, more complex reading and "whittling" it down to a base version, which is easier to read (grammatically, number of sentences, superfluous details are left out), and then building from that base version to a more complex version and so on until students are ready to read the original unadapted version.

From the Bottom Up - this is creating a base story of a few sentences or so and then building upon that version by adding more details and language structures and so on until students come to the final version of the story.

My first attempts at embedded readings were From the Top Down, and my students did not seem to enjoy those because of the lack of compelling plot. What I began to do instead were From the Bottom Up, which allowed for me to control the structures and to create a compelling plot.

Here is an excerpt of a From the Bottom Up embedded reading which I created:

Version #1

olim Abby pessimum morbum habebat, sed non remedium habebat. Abby nunc maximos oculos et maximas aures habebat. Merlena erat crudelis puella et semper Abbyem deridebat. 

Version #2

olim Abby pessimum morbum habebat sed non remedium habebat. Abby non pecuniam habebat. Abby nunc maximos oculos et maximas aures habebat. Abby temptavit celare suos maximos oculos et maximas aures. Merlena, quae erat crudelis puella, semper Abbyem deridebat. Merlena Abbyem derisit, dicens, “tuae aures sunt maximae, sicut aures elephanti! tui oculi sunt maximae."

Version #3

olim Abby pessimum habebat, sed non remedium habebat. Abby non multam pecuniam habebat, quod autoraedam emerat. propter pessimum morbum, Abby nunc maximos oculos et maximas aures habebat. propter maximas aures, Abby temptavit gerere petasum, sed aures erant maximi. propter maximos oculos, Abby temptavit gerere perspicilla, sed oculi erant maximi. propter maximas aures et oculos, Abby discedere domum noluit. Merlena, quae erat crudelis puella, semper Abbyem deridebat. Merlena Abbyem deridere solebat, dicens, “tuae aures sunt maximae, sicut aures elephanti, sicut Dumbo! tui oculi sunt maximi, sicut plena luna! nemo te amat!"

Observations

1. The addition of new bits of the plot and personalizing the story by making students the characters for each version definitely made it more compelling for students to read.
2. Because the original versions were embedded in the final version, the final version was much easier to read, and students read it at a much faster pace. Even though the story appeared to be longer, the length of the story due to its apparent "ease" did not deter students.
3. Even though my stories were embedded, I need to do a MUCH better job at limiting the amount of vocabulary in the stories. Although the reading is embedded, in many ways, it is still an intensive reading (too much vocabulary and language structures) instead of an extensive reading (limited vocabulary and language structures with much repetition)
4. The embedding allowed for more meaningful repetitions of the language

So how does one create a From the Bottom Up embedded reading? As Laurie Clarcq and Michelle Whaley presented last week in their workshop:

1. Pick 3 language structures/vocabulary words on which you want to focus.
2. Write a short story of 3-4 sentences involving them - that will serve as your base story
3. Now WITHIN your base story, add 3-4 more sentences with new details. Do not just add the new details to the very end, because then students will not read the beginning, and the purpose is for students to re-read the story in order to get in more repetitions of the language. Try to repeat those language structures. Also, change the wording some of your first sentence so that students think it is a new version/story.
4. Now with the new version, add 3-4 more sentences with new details. You can start combining sentences/varying up the already existing sentences with new structures, as students are already familiar with the vocabulary, but again try to repeat those 3 language structures in the new details.
5. Continue until you feel the version which you have is complete. In my opinion, four versions are enough.

So give embedded readings a try - they actually do work! So what are some ways to get students to read them? I'll save that for future posts.

Embedded Reading, Part 1

The following is the first of a two-part series

One of Krashen's main tenets is the importance of reading and how that is a major contributor in language acquisition. Now in modern language classes, reading is not addressed enough, but in Latin classes, it seems like that is ALL WE DO!

I use CLC, which is a textbook based on reading methodology. I love the stories in stages 1-9, as they are fun passages and something which students can read easily. Students like the characters, and these particular readings are quite comprehensible and compelling. Somewhere, however, around stage 10, the readings suddenly become long and actually quite complex grammatically and vocabulary-wise for students, and what ends up happening is that students go from reading the stories to now translating/decoding them. Definitely by the time students reach the Unit 2 and 3 books, the readings are quite long, and students immediately become overwhelmed by the sheer length of them.

About a year ago, I learned about something called embedded readings, which are simply scaffolded versions of the same story, beginning with a simplified version, with progressively more difficult versions in between and eventually ending with the original text; in other words, in each of the versions, the previous text has been "embedded" in it. At ACTFL last November, I had the opportunity to see Laurie Clarcq, who has a website dedicated to embedded readings, present on this topic. 

Now prior to having a class read a passage, the understanding is that you as the teacher have already previewed any new vocabulary or structures so that nothing "new" pops up in the reading, thereby allowing students to read and not translate/decode.

Creating embedded readings is actually quite easy: 

1. Take the original text, and create the most simplified version of it, grammatically, vocabulary, etc. Now it may be that you do not include every single point of the original version but what you want is a very comprehensible and understandable version of the original version. 
2. Now create a version which is between the simplified version and the original text in terms of difficulty. The simplified text is "embedded" in this version but maybe now appears in a more complex grammatical construction or as part of a subordinate clause in a longer sentence.
3. End with the original version of the story. It may be that another interim version is needed before having students read the original version depending on the complexity.

Here is an example of an embedded passage from stage 29 CLC (passive voice is the language structure being introduced):

Embedded Version #1

Erat nox. luna et stellae fulgebant (were shining) in caelo. homines quiescebant (were resting). sed erat non quies (quiet) in Roma; erat non silentium in Roma. dives (rich) homines habitabant in magnis domibus, et consumebant cenas splendidas. servi cibum sumptuosum offerebant. ancillae optimum vinum fundebant et cantabant carmina. sed in altis insulis (apartment buildings), homines non cenas splendidas consumebant. homines audiebant non carmina. 

Embedded Version #2

nox erat. luna et stellae fulgebant (were shining) in caelo. erat tempus quo (when) homines quiescere solent (are accustomed to rest). Romae (in Roma) tamen erat nulla (not any) quies, erat nulla silentium. in magnis domibus, dives (rich) homines habitabant: 

• homines consumebant cenas splendidas; cenae splendidae consumebantur a (by) hominibus; 
• servi offerebant cibum sumptuosum (sumptuous); cibus sumptuosus offerebatur a servis; 
• servi fundebant optimum vinum; optimum vinum a servis fundebatur. 
• homines cantabant carmina; carmina cantabantur ab hominibus

in altis insulis (apartment buildings): 

• homines non consumebant cenas splendidas; nullae cenae splendidae consumebantur; 
• nemo audiebat carmina; nulla carmina audiebantur. 

Original

nox erat. luna stellaeque in caelo fulgebant. tempus erat quo homines quiescere solent. Romae (in Roma) tamen nulla erat quies, nulla silentium. magnis in domibus, ubi dives homines habitabant, cenae splendidae consumebantur. cibus sumptuosus a servis offerebatur. optimum vinum ab ancillis fundebatur. carmina cantabantur. in altis insulis (apartment buildings), nullae cenae splendidae consumebantur. nulla carmina audiebantur.

Another form of embedded reading is an enodatio (an untying of a knot), where the Latin passage is put back into an English word order. This is a technique which I learned from Nancy Llewellyn.

Embedded Version #1 of Aeneid, Book 1, lines 419-429, 437 

Aeneas miratur molem in Karthagō - molēs erant quondam magalia, sed nunc sunt moles. Aeneas quoque miratur portās, strepitum urbis et strata viārum. Tyriī sunt ardentēs, et instant: pars Tyriī ducunt murōs, pars Tyriī aedificant arcem, et pars Tyriī subvolvunt saxa manibus; pars Tyriī quaerunt locum domō, et concludunt locum sulcō. Tyriī legunt iura, magistratūs et sanctum senatum. Hic, aliī effodiunt portus. hic, aliī locant alta fundamenta theatrīs. Tyriī excidunt immanēs columnās e rupibus. columnae sunt alta decora scaenīs futurīs. Aeneas dicit, “O fortunatī sunt homines quorum moenia iam surgunt!”

Embedded Version #2 of Aeneid, Book 1, lines 419-429, 437

I. Aeneas miratur

A. molem (quondam magalia) et
B. portas et

C. strepitum(que)

D. et strata viarum

II. ardentes Tyrii instant

III. pars (Tyrii)

A. ducere muros
B. et moliri arcem et

C. subvolvere saxa manibus

IV. pars optare locum tecto et concludere sulco.            

V. (Tyrii) legunt

A. iura et

B. magistratus et

C. sanctum senatum

VI. hic, alii (Tyrii) effodiunt portus

VII. hic, (alii Tyrii) locant alta fundamenta theatris

VIII. (alii Tyrii) excidunt immanis columnas (e) rupibus scaenis decora alta futuris

IX. Aeneas ait, “O fortunati (homines), quorum moenia iam surgunt!”

Original version of Aeneid, Book 1, lines 419-429, 437

miratur molem Aeneas, magalia quondam,
miratur portas strepitumque et strata viarum.
Instant ardentes Tyrii: pars ducere muros,
molirique arcem et manibus subvolvere saxa,
pars optare locum tecto et concludere sulco.               5

iura magistratusque legunt sanctumque senatum;        

hic portus alii effodiunt; hic alta theatris
fundamenta locant alii, immanisque columnas
rupibus excidunt, scaenis decora alta futuris.

'O fortunati, quorum iam moenia surgunt!'...               10
Aeneas ait, et fastigia suspicit urbis

Now some may argue that I have destroyed the original Latin word order by forcing an English word order on it and that students need to learn how to read Latin from left to right - I will grant you that. BUT my primary concern is establishing meaning FIRST. Above all, that is of utmost importance.

Observations

• Due to the scaffolding nature of the stories, it greatly lowers students' affective filters regarding the reading itself. Handing students the original text probably would overwhelm them if it were too difficult or too long.
• Because students are reading multiple scaffolded versions of the same story, they are already familiar with what they are reading, thereby, they can anticipate vocabulary and language structures
• Due to the re-reading, students are getting plenty of meaningful/contextual repetitions of the language

So this past year, I began doing embedded readings with my students. In one particular Latin III class, after they had read a simplified version of a story, I told them that they were now going to read the same story but the next version was just a bit more complex grammatically and longer in length. As soon as I said that, a student yelled out, "But the first version really wasn't that interesting the first time we read it!" As I thought about what he said, I realized that he was right...so I began to put my own twist on embedded readings

What did I do? This will be addressed in my next posting.

Sheltering Vocabulary

In 1960, Bennett Cerf, the co-founder of Random House Publishing Company, bet Theodore Geisel that he could not write a children's book using only 50 different words. Geisel undertook this task and under the pseudonym Dr. Seuss, he wrote the book Green Eggs and Ham. And yes, only 50 unique words are used in the entire book.

Theodore Geisel's Green Eggs and Ham is a perfect example of the TPRS mantra "Shelter/Limit Vocabulary, not Grammar," and it is this mantra which really rubs a lot of teachers the wrong way. "What? Shelter/limit vocabulary? A language does not consist of a few words and nor does it exist in a vacuum! The more words which a student knows, the better he/she will be able to communicate or to read!" And yes, there is some degree of truth in that: we do indeed want our student to be able to communicate and to read. The issue at hand though is that we overload our students with WAY TOO MUCH vocabulary all at once, while forcing them to learn language structures at the same time. The result: they end up knowing neither well. 

If you were to ask your students of any level of Latin which vocabulary words they knew best, most likely they would respond with words from the beginning weeks of Latin 1 - for my students, even if they were AP students, those words would be the CLC stage 1 words: pater, mater, servus, filius, canis, tablinum, atrium, culina, hortus, via, triclinium, est, scribit, bibit, sedet, laborat, dormit, etc. And though shocking at first since these students are three years removed from Latin 1 and have "learned" so many more words since then, at the same time, it is not surprising. Why? Because those limited words are repeated over and over in their readings in the opening weeks in various configurations, therefore, students really have no choice but to internalize/acquire them. After that, though, the curriculum becomes a mad dash of overloading them with a massive amount of new low-frequency vocabulary words while introducing new language structures. To quote my friend Evan Gardner, founder of Where Are Your Keys?, as a result, students end up "burning unnecessary memory bandwidth."    

Now focusing on a limited amount of vocabulary does not mean that no new vocabulary is ever introduced but rather, that the amount is controlled and that the choice of words is deliberate. This allows for continued repetitions and when that word is introduced in a new language structure, students can solely focus on the form - and if the context is comprehensible, it may not even be necessary for students to focus on the form, since the word just "translates itself" due to context. 

Just because the book picks various words for their "vocabulary list" does not mean that students must learn those particular words. On the average, CLC has around 35 words in its stage vocabulary lists - WAY too much, and in my opinion, around half of those words are not important. Though they may help a particular story, big picture, they are not used enough later on to merit having students know them.

So how does one limit vocabulary?

1. Focus on high-frequency vocabulary first. I will leave you to define "high-frequency," because to every Latin teacher, that will mean something different. For some it will mean the most commonly used words in classical literature, while for others, it will mean words which are most frequently used in a particular textbook series or in a story, and yet for others, it will mean those words which are most commonly used in any language itself (words such as be, want, have, give, take, go, etc).
2. Don't focus on cognates too much. Again, students can "burn unnecessary memory bandwidth" in learning cognates. Now if like French, the word is a faux amis (false friend) and not a cognate but looks like one, then definitely focus on the word.
3. Once you determine the words on which you will focus, then these will be your foundation for TPR, TPRS, etc. 
4. Once students have acquired these words, then these particular words will become the ones which you will use to introduce new language structures. Again, this way students will only have to focus on the form, not the meaning of the word AND the new structure.

Even though vocabulary has been limited, it is still possible to create engaging and compelling stories with a few words. Look at Green Eggs and Ham!

Writing in Latin, part 3 - Student-Created Comprehensible Readers

This is part 3 in a continuing series on getting students to write in the target language.

So after students have done a timed write, what can you as the teacher do with their writings? I got this idea from Kristin Duncan's TPRSTeacher blog, which she in turn had gleaned from Judith Dubois's blog Ms. D's Funny Little Classroom.

The idea is to take some of the writings and simply to edit them for the class to read the next day, and by "edit," I mean "to correct any grammar errors in the the writing." You as the teacher type up the writings but do not change anything which has been written other than the forms for grammatical purposes or for comprehension. 

Some may say, "Students should not be writing if they are going to be making tons of errors." I suppose that one could argue that, but the purpose of this is to create some more COMPREHENSIBLE readings for students. Because these have been written by students, most likely they do not include any random vocabulary which have not been acquired yet, i.e. the writings are written by students for students at a student-level. And remember: my role in this is purely as editor. The writer Oscar Wilde supposedly, when he was sending off a manuscript to his publishers, penned a note to them, saying "I’ll leave you to tidy up the woulds and shoulds, wills and shalls, thats and whichs, etc.”

The following is an example of a timed write which I had my Latin 3 students do. The text in bold is a story which I had written: first, I read it aloud to them and acted it out - any new words or forms (such as the future participle) were written on the board and whenever I came to that word, I pointed to it on the board to establish meaning; second, the class received a paper copy of the story and we read through it together, with a choral translation of it and me asking comprehension questions in Latin about the story; third, students did a 25-minute Read and Draw of the story; fourth, finally students did a 10-minute timed write of the story, using their Read/Draw pictures - when they finished, they were to continue writing what they thought happened next. I then edited their "what happened next?" part and as a class, the next day, we read through them together. What follows are five student-written, teacher-edited conclusions of the story.

Jenny erat in culina, cantans et coquens libum, quod erat dies natalis Susanis. Jenny erat positura saccharum in libo, cum subito, Cindy culinam ingressa est. Cindy donum et venenum in mensa posuit. subito Cindy displosit, et Jenny obstupefacta est. putans venenum esse saccharum, Jenny venenum in libo posuit. libum ad Susanem a Jenny portatum est. Susan gaudio affecta est et erat consumptura libum. tum quid accidit?

1) cum Susan libum gustavisset, lacrimavit. Jenny rogavit, “quid accidit?” Susan dixit, “libum est pulchrum!” Jenny gaudio affecta est et gustavit libum. subito, Jenny displosit. Susan obsupefacta est, et consumpsit libum.

 2) Cindy intravit culinam. cucurrit ad Susanem et rapuit libum. tum Cindy deiecit libum in terra. Susan erat irata quod voluit consumere libum. “libum habet venenum!” Cindy clamavit. “Jenny voluit necare te!” loctua haec verba, Cindy petivit Jennyem. Jenny cucurrit e culina. “ego sum non homo quem tu intellexisti me esse!”

3) Cerberus culinam ingressus est, et Cindy in culina apparuit. Cindy clamat, “minime, libum venenum habet!” Jenny et Susan obstupefacti sunt. “estne venenum in libo?” dixit Susan. “ita vero,” respondit Cindy. Jenny tristitia affecta est, quod Susan erat consumptura libum, et libum habet venenum. Cerberus Jennyo appropinquavit, et prope eam sedit. Jenny gaudio affecta est. Susan risit (et dixit), “ego sum laeta, quod ego non sum mortua. Cindy, tu es amica. Jenny, tu es amica.”

4) Susan libum consumpsit et erat exanimata. Jenny obstupefacta est, et erat lacrimatura. tum Cindy decidit a caelo, et servavit Susanem. Susan affecta est gratitiā, et dixit, “maximas gratias ago, quod tu es meus heros!” Cindy explicavit quid accidisset. Susan et Jenny in animo volverunt cur Cindy portavisset donum cum veneno ad diem natalem. Cindy narravit rem. Cindy voluit necare porcum scelestum, sed obstructa erat a scelesto arbore. Cindy per silvam ambulavit…

5) subito Susan a Jenny pulsata est. irata, Susan Jennyem rogavit, “cur tu me pulsavisti? ego numquam te pulso!” Jenny Susanae dixit, “O Susan, re vera, tu est optima amica.” sed Jenny Susanem iterum pulsavit, et Susan humi decidit, mortua. nunc Susan (awoke) et putans esse fabulam mirabilem, libum laeta consumpsit. sed quod libum erat malum libum, Susan iterum humi decidit, mortua. Cindy apparuit, cacchinans!

Observations
1) Because everyone in the class took part in the timed write, it is a common experience for the class. The class knows what happened prior to the student-written endings, so they are eager to see what others wrote.

2) Because these writings are student-written, they are incredibly comprehensible to read. I do not even do an English translation of it when we read through them - we read them together in Latin as Latin - I don't ask any comprehension questions but simply read the stories aloud in Latin. What I love most is hearing students laugh as they read along with me, because it shows me that they are truly interacting with the language in the language.

3) Students actually get mad at me when I do not pick their writings for the class to read. I explain to them, "I pick 5-6 writings at random. Yours will be picked eventually."

4) In my editor role, I am able to see what kinds of grammatical errors which students are making; this shows me what I need to review or where I need to slow down to help acquisition.

5) I am absolutely floored at what students come up with when it comes to creating their own endings - they are so creative!