Latin Lesson Plan for Prologue of "Perseus et Rex Malus"

This year in Latin 3, we have started the school year by beginning to read Andrew Olympi's novella Perseus et Malus Rex. Here is my lesson plan for the prologue - this also contains a lesson plan for how I previewed vocabulary and prepared students to be able to read the prologue - it is with Andrew's full permission that I post the entire prologue here on my blog:

Previewing Vocabulary for the Prologue 
Day 1

1. Movie Talk - Monstrum in Armario

• Target words - In lecto, aliquid, magnos sonos facit, defessus, in armario, tempus est, obdormire, timet
• Movie Talk script
• Movie Talk worksheet (students fill this out during the Movie Talk)

Day 2

1. Introduce reading of Movie Talk
2. Choral Reading
3. Stultus
4. Monstrum in Amario cartoon

Day 3

1. Running Dictatio with pictures
1. Pictures
2. Worksheet
2. Translation/Drawing Dictation (sentences) - students can either draw or translate what they hear

Day 4

1. Unfair/Give or Take game

Prologue

Day 1

• Story Listening 2.0 of Prologue (Tier 1)
• script
• picture example

Day 2

• Retell story again using picture (project Story Listening picture)
• Hand back pictures & students answer questions on paper using only their pictures
• questions
• Social Emotional Learning reading
• Tier 2 level of Prologue

Day 3

• Read/Draw/Pass of Tier 2 level reading
• Read Dating of full version of Prologue
• full version of Prologue

Day 4

• Lucky Reading Game of full version of Prologue

Day 5

• VINCO with pictures
• VINCO sheets
• VINCO cards
• Assessment

How to CI a Latin Textbook Chapter Reading

With the school year now beginning for many Latin teachers, here is a blog post about how to CI a textbook chapter for those teachers who are "bound" to the textbook or are wanting to incorporate CI in their curriculum but do not feel that they possess a strong enough foundation yet to leave behind the textbook.

Since most Latin textbooks are centered around readings, the first thing to do is to pick 1-2 readings from a chapter on which you will focus - do not feel the need to cover EVERY reading in a chapter (e.g., stage 14 of the Cambridge Latin Course has 9 readings!). The name of the game, though, is to sift through the reading(s) to determine with what vocabulary words students are unfamiliar PRIOR to the students reading it, and then to determine what vocabulary to PRETEACH, how you plan to introduce it, and what words will you leave as icing/glossed words. Then, you need to determine what kinds of post-reading activities which you want to do in order to consolidate this vocabulary.

Below are lessons plan examples of "how to CI" Stage 1 of the Cambridge Latin Course and Chapter 3 of Ecce Romani. 

Cambridge Latin Course - Stage 1 Model Sentence (due to copyright law, I am unable to post the actual reading from the story)

1. Words to immediately target before the reading:

• pater
• mater
• filius
• filia
• canis
• est
• scribit
• bibit
• laborat
• in culina
• in tablino

    Icing words/words for glossing:

• servus (possibly a cognate which students may recognize)
• in atrio
• in triclinio
• in horto
• dormit
• legit
• in via
• coquus

2. Preteach the following words using Picture Talk: pater, mater, filius, filia, canis, est, -ne, quis, quae

Picture talk script

3. Preteach the following words using a Movie Talk: in culina, in tablino

Movie Talk script

4. Preteach the following words doing 3-ring circus: scribit, bibit, laborat
5. Project the model sentences and pictures from the textbook for students to read. Gloss icing words.
6. Do a choral reading of the model sentences.
7. Play a game of Stultus with the model sentences.
8. Do a Ping Pong reading of the model sentences.
9. Play Pancho Cumacho with vocabulary from model sentences. 

Pancho Cumacho script

10. Word Chunk Game with model sentences. 

Ecce Romani - Chapter 3 reading "In the Garden" (due to copyright law, I am unable to post the actual reading from the story)

1. Words with which students are "familiar/may have acquired" due to prior use in previous chapters:

• est
• nomine
• in villa rustica/villis rusticis
• habitat
• alter
• et
• sunt 
• amici
• hodie
• quod
• laeti
• quoque
• in agris
• currunt
• sed

Words which are cognates:

• pictura
• Romanus
• servus
• Italia
• Brittanicus
• statua

Words to immediately target before the reading

• puer
• solus
• clamant
• rident
• subito
• laborant
• iratus
• molestus

Icing words/words for glossing

• qui
• in horto
• eadem
• multi
• in piscinam
• cadit
• abite, molesti
• gemit

2. Preteach the following vocabulary using a Movie Talk: Dragonboy

Dragonboy script

3. Preteach the following words doing 3-ring circus: clamat, ridet, laborat
4. Project Dragonboy reading for students to read. 

Dragonboy reading

6. Do a choral reading of the Dragonboy story.
7. Play a game of Stultus with the Dragonboy story
8. Social Emotional Learning reading with Dragonboy story.
9. Read/Draw of Dragonboy story

Read/Draw sentences
Read Draw cartoon grid

10. Using Read/Draw as a guide, do a 5-minute timed write of the Dragonboy story
11. NOW introduce Chapter 3 Ecce Romani reading. Gloss any icing words.

While some many wonder why it is necessary to do another story prior to introducing this chapter, our goal is to make the Chapter 3 reading as comprehensible as possible for students upon reading it for the first time, meaning that they know as many words as possible. Preteaching vocabulary will allow for this.

Latin "Invent a Monster" Lesson Plan

During 1st semester in my Latin 2 classes, one of our units covered monsters, specifically adapted Latin passages dealing with the Python (from the Apollo and Python myth), the basilisk as described by Pliny the Elder, and the Basilisk from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. The unit then focused on an adapted Latin passage about the Cynocephali, an ancient Middle Eastern people who supposedly had the bodies of humans but the heads of dogs (Marco Polo even wrote about these people in his travels!). At the end, I culminated the unit with students creating their own monsters in Latin. If you know anything about mythological monsters, they are usually a hybrid of different animals. As a result, this gave me a perfect opportunity to introduce body parts in Latin. 

Below is the lesson plan which I implemented (note - I did other things on these days too but I have listed only what pertains to the Invent a Monster lesson):

Day 1

1. Movie Talk - Monstrum et Cibum

Day 2

1. Cartoon - Monstrum et Cibum

Day 3

1. Project reading for class to read (story - the red represents new target vocabulary)
1. Choral Reading
2. Stultus
2. Four Word Picture (2 rounds)
1. Group 1 words - dentes, fugit, dat, torosus
2. Group 2 words - cibus, in capite, occidit, silva

Day 4

1. Drawing Dictation using words from the Movie Talk story (script)

Day 5

1. Read/Draw of Monstrum et Cibum story

Day 6

1. 10-minute Timed Write of story using Read/Draw

Day 7

1. Assessment

Day 8

1. Invent a Monster

Observations

1. I was very surprised at how creative students were in combining body parts of animals to create their monster - I wish that I had taken pictures of them for you to see!
2. The movie talk lent itself to introducing body parts in a very natural, contextual way.
3. Although I did not plan this, for second semester, the focus was on the Perseus myth, which I did not realize had so many different body parts in it (Medusa has serpents on her head and the body of a woman; if one looks into the eyes of Medusa, one turns into stone; Graiae sisters share a single eye and tooth among them). Unknowingly, I had already previewed body parts vocabulary by the time we began the Perseus myth.

Culture Lesson Plan - Roman Pets

As part of our Brandon Brown Canem Vult -1st Chapter Lesson Plan, Bob Patrick and I introduced animalia domestica Romana (Roman pets) as our culture topic. Since our goal was to introduce culture in the target language through a comprehensible reading (see here for a previous post on this topic), this is the lesson plan which we used. Bob wrote the original reading which we then embedded in different ways:

Day 1

1. Warm up - project ppt slide of various animals and ask questions in Latin about "which animal .....?" (powerpoint, script)
2. Dictatio - short version of the original passage (dictatio script, dictatio ppt to project)

Day 2

1. Complete dictatio as needed
2. Review dictatio passage through choral reading
3. Play multiple rounds of Socrative review (Space Race) of dictatio passage - directions:
   a) importing quiz into your own list of Socrative quizzes - the SOC code # is SOC-25027325
   b) starting Space Race
   c) student paced quiz directions

Day 3

1. Read/Draw/Discuss of the dictatio passage

Day 4

1. Complete Read/Draw/Discuss as needed
2. Timed write using Read/Draw

Day 5

1. Read full Animalia Domestica reading
2. Draw 1-2-3 of one paragraph from the full reading

Observations

1. I really liked this passage which Bob wrote, because it gave students an understanding of why particular pets were more favorable to the Romans than others.I actually learned a lot from the passage.
2. When doing the dictatio, due to the constant repetitions of phrases, I actually had students predicting aloud what the next words/phrases were going to be as I was reading it aloud. Yep, CI works!
3. By the time students got to the full reading, most found it to be quite easy to read due to having the foundation of the earlier embedded reading.

Brando Brown Canem Vult - Chapter 1 Lesson Plan

Bob Patrick and I have begun to read Brando Brown Canem Vult in our Latin 1 classes. This is the lesson plan which I crafted for chapter 1, but I can take no real credit for it, as I have adapted many ideas from blogs which had lesson ideas for the Spanish version of the book. 

NOTE - prior to students' reading this, Bob and I pre-taught roughly 90% of the vocabulary in the first chapter, i.e., this was not a sight-reading for students, nor did we use the first chapter to teach vocabulary. See my post here on the importance of pre-teaching vocabulary.  

Day 1

1. Introduce the main characters of BBCV (script). I adapted this script from a Spanish script which Mike Coxon had on his blog. Mike actually got this from one of his colleagues, Megan Ramsey. This is a great script, and I can take absolutely no credit for it, other than adapting it into Latin.

Day 2

1. Students complete an "embedded" cartoon of the 1st chapter. This cartoon highlights the main sentences of the 1st chapter and will prepare them for the main reading on Day 3, as these sentences will show up in the reading. (cartoon)

Day 3

1. Hand out the books to students and read the 1st chapter aloud, as they follow along in the book. Circle and ask questions as you go along. Do comprehension checks throughout the reading. PQA can also be helpful.
2. Students complete a survey. I created a Google Forms survey which asked one question: How much of the reading did you understand - none, some of it, half of it, most of it, the majority of it?

Day 4

1. Do a Verum/Falsum warmup regarding facts in the 1st chapter. (ppt)
2. Do a Quis Diceret (who would say this?) discussion about characters in the 1st chapter. I learned this activity from Carol Gaab at a NTPRS conference. (ppt)
3. Play Kahoot game regarding the 1st chapter. Play first as a regular game and then again in Ghost Mode. (link to Kahoot game in Latin)

Day 5

1. Do warm-up by writing a chart on the board and having students respond in Latin. 
2. Ping-pong/volleyball reading of 1st chapter. 
3. Timed write of the 1st chapter.

Day 6 and following

Bob wrote up a cultural reading on Roman pets. I will share this and how we taught it in a later post.

Observations

1. I was absolutely floored by how smoothly the reading went and how students kept saying "how easy it was to read." I credit this to pre-teaching the majority of the vocabulary and to Carol Gaab's brilliant crafting of the story with limited vocabulary and TONS of meaningful and compelling repetitions!
2. After the reading on Day 3, 90% of the students who answered the survey said that they were able to understand at least half of it (with the majority stating that they understood the majority of it). On Day 4, I was absolutely floored by how well they were able to answer and to take part in the post-reading discussions/activities i.e., they really did understand it! 
3. The cartoon was not actually part of the original lesson plan. I had planned to jump into the reading on Day 2, but Bob ended up getting sick on that day, so we decided to create a preview cartoon for Day 2. This actually worked in favor for our students, as it eased them into the reading and served as an embedded reading for them.
4. You may want to do a read-dating or airplane reading for the ping-pong/volleyball reading, because I gave students 10-minutes to read this in partners, and although students could read the chapter, they complained that 10 minutes seemed like a long time. Adding movement of some kind may add some novelty to the activity and make student unaware of the time.

"Short and Sweet" Follow-up Lesson Plan

The following is the Latin lesson plan which I created based on the Short and Sweet Movie Talk from the previous blog posting. Once again, I thank Lauren Watson for sharing some of her ideas with me! I have also included English versions so that you can adapt it for your own target language. 

Latin target words
puella, puer, magnus, parvus, valde, inquit, eheu, quod, alter

English target words
girl, boy, big, small, very much, says, oh dear, because, the other

Day 1 
Short and Sweet Movie Talk to introduce target words

Day 2
1) Introduce short reading based on Short and Sweet Movie Talk, using circling and PQAs (Latin story to project/ English version)
2) Choral reading to establish meaning 
3) Play Stultus with the reading
4) Class blind retell of story in target language based on screenshots (pictures to project)

Day 3
1) Cloze sentence activity (ppt to project)
2) Parallel story reading (Latin story / English version)
3) Sentence Flyswatter (pictures to project)

Day 4
Find the Sentence (handout)
Timed Write

Day 5
Ping-pong reading of embedded version of story (Latin version #2 of story/ English version)

Lesson Plan - Want to Have, Love, See. Take, Give to Him/Her

I've received a lot of very positive feedback about my Week 1 Lesson Plan. Here is my lesson which I recently used to teach the verbs want to have, love, see, take, and give to him/her; and the nouns dog, money, and baby. I chose those particular verb structures, because they are high frequency, and because students already knew the verbs want and have, I could easily add on the infinitive to have and teach it as a single structure. It is not necessary to use those particular nouns, but to me, they seemed somewhat compelling for the story.

English version
Yoda sees Kim Kardashian. Yoda loves Kim. Kim sees Yoda. Yoda does not love Kim. 

Kim wants to have a dog. Yoda sees a dog. Yoda takes the dog. Yoda gives the dog to her. Kim loves the dog, but aww shucks, Kim does not love Yoda.

Kim wants to have money. Yoda sees money. Yoda takes the money. Yoda gives the money to her. Kim loves the money, but aww shucks, Kim does not love Yoda.

Kim wants to have a baby. Yoda sees a baby. Yoda takes the baby. Yoda gives the baby to her. Kim loves the baby, but aww shucks, the baby explodes.

Latin version

Yoda Kim Kardashianem videt. Yoda Kimem amat.Kim Yodam videt. Kim Yodam non amat.

Kim canem habere vult. Yoda canem videt. Yoda canem capit. Yoda canem ei dat. Kim canem amat, sed edepol! Kim Yodam non amat.

Kim pecuniam habere vult. Yoda pecuniam videt. Yoda pecuniam capit. Yoda dulciolum ei dat. Kim pecuniam amat, sed edepol! Kim Yodam non amat.

Kim infantem habere vult. Yoda infantem videt. Yoda infantem capit. Yoda infantem ei dat.

Kim infantem amat, sed edepol!  infans displodit.

Day 1

1) Dictatio of story version #1 (dictatio directions)

Day 2

2) Teacher retells story aloud and acts it out w/ circling and PQAs (sorry, no script this time!)

Day 3

1) Readers Theater of story (if you as the teacher play Movie Director with this, you can get students to redo their stage directions after each sentence to get in more reps of the language!)

2) Choral Reading of story

Day 4

1) Read/Draw of story

Day 5

1) Partner retell of story in Latin, using Read/Draw

2) 5-minute timed write of story, using Read/Draw as a story map

Day 6

1) Project student-written timed write endings and read as a class (pick out any endings which students wrote for their timed write, edit them for grammar purposes, and write them on a document or powerpoint)

2) Read Dating of Story Version #2