The Wishgranter - Movie Talk

This is a Movie Talk which I did last year pre-Covid. In my Latin 3 classes, we were reading the novella Perseus et Rex Malus, and I wanted to preview the words conatur (tries) and iacit (throws). Yes, considering that it was just two words I could have previewed these words much more quickly, but I really like doing Movie Talks! In addition, because this Movie Talk involved so many words already known by students, it allowed me to concentrate on these target words while reviewing known words in a new context. To me, the best animated movie shorts are those which contain tons of repetition in them, so this one worked perfectly for what I needed.

The plot of the animated short is simple: a "wishgranter" attempts to grant the wishes of a young man and woman who both throw coins into a fountain. Something goes awry, and that is where the wacky fun begins!

Movie Talk script (Latin)

Movie Talk (English)

Movie Talks on my Blog

So I have added a new page to my blog: my list of movie talks from this blog! I have listed the movie talks with target language and links to my blogs posts. You can find this page along the vertical dashboard at the top of this blog, but here is the link to that page:

List of Movie Talks

This list only represents the movie talks which I have posted on this blog, but I have SO MANY more that I will add and update to this list. Hope you can use some of these!

Sanjay's Super Team - Movie Talk

Here is one more Movie Talk which I would like to share with you: Sanjay's Super Team! It is now one of my all-time favorite animated shorts. Sanjay's Super Team is a Pixar short from 2015, and quite honestly, I do not remember this one at all when it came out (it was paired with Pixar's The Good Dinosaur in the theaters in 2015, and quite honestly, I do not remember that Pixar film at all either). Anyhow, I needed to preview a number of religious-related vocabulary words, such as pray to, worship, divinities, and temples (again, very specific upper-level Latin themes), so I was so glad to come upon this Pixar short.

However, a downside of this particular Movie Talk is that Sanjay's Super Team is only available on Disney + for now (it is not currently on YouTube in its entirety). Essentially, the plot is about a boy named Sanjay who loves watching superheroes on TV, but his father says that it is time to take part in a Hindu worship ceremony. Sanjay half-heartedly takes part in the worship ceremony to these divinities, but he really would rather watch superheroes on telelvision. That is where the action ensues! 

Targeted Words

colere - to worship

precari - to pray to

pupam - action figure/doll

veretur - is afraid

numina/numen - divinity

miratur - is amazed

servat - saves/rescues

ingens/ingentia - huge

templum - temple

English script

Latin script

Observations

1. What a great multicultural animated short! Most students had not seen this Pixar short, so it was nice to be able to introduce this to them. 
2. Once again, this movie short naturally lends itself to lots of vocabulary repetitions.

If you have Disney +, there are a lot of Pixar shorts there in its catalog which were new to me, and I am already looking for ways to use them!

Sand Castle - Movie Talk

Once again, like my previous blog post, this may only relate to the teachers in the Latin community, but I hope that other language teachers may find it useful.

So like I stated in my previous blog post, in teaching upper level Latin, we find ourselves having to address some very specific vocabulary, especially words related to war, empire, and imperialism. I shared my Royal Madness movie talk with you which introduced a number of war vocabulary words, and here is another one which addresses many of these words: Sand Castle.

Target words

arma - weapons

gens/gentem - nation

imperium - empire

procul - far away

acies - battle line

delere - to destroy

occupare - to occupy

cancer - crab

dux - leader

eques - cavalry man

English script

Latin script

Observations

1. Another great movie talk which lends itself towards lots of vocabulary repetitions.
2. As a Latin teacher who has to deal with very specific words such as cavalry, battle line, leader, and weapons, finding this animated short was a godsend!

Royal Madness - Movie Talk

This blog post probably only relates to the Latin teaching community but hopefully other language teachers can use this.

I have been teaching upper level Latin for the past few years, and if you do too, you know that we start to get into some very specific vocabulary themes in the upper levels, such as war, imperialism, Caesar in Gaul, empire, etc. I have also found that there are not a whole lot of school-appropriate movie shorts involving war vocabulary which I can use as movie talks to preview these words - there definitely are a lot of movie shorts out there about war, but they are either overly violent and gory or are WAY too emotional for the classroom (I once did the Robot and the Grandma as a movie talk and was told by students NEVER to do that one again, because it was way too sad!). Finally, however, I was able to find a movie short which I could manipulate to fit those war words which I needed but was still light-hearted: Royal Madness.

Target Words

appropinquat -  approaches              

bellum gerit - wages war

exercitus - army

imperator - emperor

in dolore - in grief

in proelio - in battle

mortua - dead

non iam - no longer

pax - peace

vicit - has conquered

English script

Latin script

Observations

1. This animated short lends itself naturally to TONS of target word repetitions!
2. This was the first movie talk which I did this school year, and it was done completely in a digital teaching environment (before we went hybrid). Since I had not physically seen students since March and honestly, since I could not say with confidence that students actually "acquired" any Latin during that time of distance learning in the last half of the semester, I approached this particular movie talk very gingerly and assumed that this was completely new material for students. 

In my next blog post, I will share another movie talk which I did following this one which previewed more "war/imperial" vocabulary.

Using Vocabulary Know-It Boards as a Formative - Google Slides Manipulatives

As I continue to embark on this hybrid environment of teaching both digital and in-person students simultaneously, I am learning how important formative assessments and observations are in informing me as the teacher how to proceed when for most students I cannot physically witness their progress. My colleague Rachel Ash introduced me to Google Slide manipulatives, and she has demonstrated a way in which students can let me know how well they know their vocabulary: Vocabulary Know-It Boards (look for the specific activity on the page - you can actually make a copy for yourself from her example).

Essentially, from the list of 25ish provided words, students will drag the word to the quadrant which best describes their knowledge of the word: I Really Know It, I Know It, I Kind of Know It, I Don't Know It.

Student Examples:

Observations

1. This is a really easy way for students to "check-in" with me about what they feel like they know and what they do not know.
2. The downside of this is that the vocabulary words are presented in isolation, so in some ways, it may be that students actually do know the words when they see them in context but in isolation, they do not.
3. Using Google Classroom, this is so easy to assign, because I just "Make a Copy for Each Student" and then they can "Turn It In" when finished.
4. I do manually tally what words are most commonly being placed in the "I Kind of Know" and "I Don't Know" quadrants. These become the words which I target.
5. I do make this an assignment for students to ensure that I receive feedback from every student, but I also give them a 100 as a completion grade.
6. I do this assignment every 3-4 weeks to see what students feel like they know and what they feel like they do not know.

Multiple Stories - Put the Sentences in Order - Google Slides Manipulatives

I am continuing to experiment with Google Slides manipulatives, and here is another activity which i was able to adapt to a digital environment. It is Multiple Stories - Put the Sentences in Order but now converted to an individual virtual assignment (see my blog post about how to create Google Slide manipulatives). 

Due to teaching hybrid classes in this weird digital environment, I have being going deliberately slow and almost painfully overdoing the amount of repetitions of stories in different ways to increase vocabulary and language structure exposure for students. An activity like this allowed for me to consolidate the stories into one assignment as a review. Below is a picture of what the assignment looked like for students - it is based on two Movie Talks and an ongoing story about Augustus (can you tell that I have to introduce war-related, imperial vocabulary this year?):

Observations

1. I love that in Google Classroom, I can assign this as a copy for every student and that when students submit it, I can immediately correct the assignment and then return it with comments.
2. Again, this is a great higher-order thinking activity, because it forces students to distinguish which sentence is for each story and then to determine the correct order of the sentences.
3. The "draggable" nature of the assignment lends to its novelty and definitely appeals to tactile learners.
4. Students did quite well on this, so from a formative perspective, this let me know that they were ready to move onto new vocabulary.
5. This is a great assignment for an asynchronous learning day (if you are able to do those)!