William Sanders Scarborough.
Courtesy of the Rembert E. Stokes Library, Wilberforce University, Wilberforce, Ohio.

The anime creators of Blood of Zeus share their vision.

Poet Jim Harrison’s Carpe Diem

Pyramus and Thisbe in The Simpsons

Connecting a Covidian world with Greek myths.

Diana displayed in Chicago.

Pigasus for President 1968

Farm in Union, Maine.

All of us at Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers send you positive energy and good wishes as you weather the winds of the latest round of COVID and potential challenges to your teaching.

 

Congratulations to the Classical Association of the Empire State and especially to the Annual Institute triumvirate of leadership—president Charles Giglio and program committee chairs Meghan Miller and Dr. Sara Watkins—on a successful virtual institute. The stimulating presentations included such topics as Latin and LGBT issues, the Antigone and social justice, low-prep comprehensible instruction, Latin and the movies, and shifting blame in De Bello Gallico. Emerson Stevens of St. Gregory the Great School and Kate Hannon of East Aurora High School respectively won copies of B-C’s First Lessons in Greek and The Latin of Science.

 

It is a distinct honor to encourage you to read Bob Patrick’s introduction to B-C’s new novella series that is published in this issue. Bob speaks specifically about Emma Vanderpool’s Augury Is for the Birds, which will be available in December. His essay, however, discusses the pedagogical benefits of incorporating novellas into your Latin classroom and presents suggestions for classroom activities to use with novellas. It was my pleasure to meet Bob in 2010, when we were both presenters at the ARLT (The Association for Latin Teachers) summer program for teachers held at Sheffield University in England. ARLT was founded by W. H. D. Rouse in 1911 to promote the direct method of teaching Latin. The “R” stands for “reform.” Over the decade, I have enjoyed Bob’s friendship and been edified by his thoughtful Facebook posts. You’ll find his essay very informative.

 

Some of you may have noticed on Facebook that I have moved from Illinois to Maine. My partner Ray is the new Class Dean for Freshmen and Programs at Colby College. We have rented a beautiful Victorian home in Augusta and are gradually settling in. It’s a significant change in pace and environment from Chicago. I first came to Chicago in 1977 fresh from my Williams College graduation to teach Latin and Greek at Loyola Academy in Wilmette, a Chicago suburb. What I thought would be one year became twenty-six at the Academy and subsequently teaching at Kennedy-King College, one of the City Colleges of Chicago, and working for Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers. I continue to work for B-C remotely and as the company’s rep for conferences, and I eagerly look forward to seeing folks real time at classics meetings in 2021! Now, I’ll be driving to the annual Classical Association of New England meetings and participating in Maine Classical Association events. In addition, the move is a return to my New England roots!

 

And . . . heads up to a little change at B-C. To maximize the efficiency of our operations, we have moved our office. While our USPS mailing address has changed to 1000 Brown Street, Unit 301, Wauconda IL 60084-3111, our other contact information remains the same. Our website address remains www.bolchazy.com, and you can also place orders by phone 847-526-4344 or by fax 847-526-2867. As you know, we take pride in the quality of our service and providing you immediate access to customer service assistance or the services of one of our classics-trained editors.

 

May we seize this opportunity to encourage you to let us know if your contact information—email address, telephone number, USPS address, teaching institution, etc.—has changed. Just zap me an email, don@bolchazy.com, and we’ll get your entry in the database updated.

 

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your families and to your students and their families.

Stay safe!

 

Jamboard is an excellent virtual collaborative whiteboard. It is part of the Google Suite and there are iOS and Android apps too. On the whiteboard, the user can type, add images, paste sticky notes, and use a pen tool that is especially great on tablets. The interface is simple and intuitive. A single Jamboard can be made up of multiple whiteboards, so organization of content is simple. The user can share a Jamboard with others via a shareable link. For teachers who are currently teaching online or in a hybrid model, Jamboard is a great tool for doing a virtual gallery walk. A gallery walk is an active learning technique in which students move around the room to examine, reflect on, or respond to questions about student work or resources that are posted around the room. A teacher might use this strategy to give students the opportunity to see the work of their peers, for example, or to interact with different works of art, readings, or other resources. In order to do a virtual gallery walk, a teacher might set up a Jamboard with different Latin passages and prompts. Students use the sticky note feature to add their responses. A teacher might also use Jamboard to showcase student work. For example, if students have drawn a scene from the text or created a cartoon, the teacher can add each student’s work to an individual slide in the Jamboard and then ask the class to look at each slide and offer affirmations or feedback via a sticky note. For lower level classes, consider adding an image or series of images to the Jamboard and asking students to label the image using Latin vocabulary.

 

One thing that is worth noting, Google also has a physical digital whiteboard called a Jamboard that the software supports. So, if you’re looking up additional information online and come across this, know that you do not have to invest in the hardware to use the Jamboard online application.

 

To get started, go to http://jamboard.google.com.

In the last five years, the field of teaching Latin has experienced a phenomenon new to this modern period of teaching: novellas. The more than seventy novellas published recently attest to a new kind of focus in teaching and learning the Latin language: the goal, with noted effects, of putting in front of students stories that are understandable at their current level of work and contain content that they find engaging, we might even say, alluring. Writers of these novellas have aimed their work at every level of student from the absolute beginner to those who have three to five years of study behind them. And the effects? Students develop the ability to actually read and understand Latin stories through Latin itself without the need or burden of attempting to translate in order to understand. Through the efficacy of understandable and engaging stories, students have almost from the beginning the experience of the language in the language itself.

 

Out of the earliest conversations about the Encounter Latin novellas, the publisher and the authors made a most valuable commitment to four things that have become the framework of the series. These commitments are to work within a limited, high-frequency vocabulary, to align the novellas with the reading proficiency guidelines of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), to write these stories in a way that is comprehensible to readers within a given proficiency level, and to create stories that students of the twenty-first century might find compelling. To that end, authors are making use of the Dickinson College Core Latin vocabulary, which is a high-frequency list (top one thousand) of Latin words found in authors of the classical period. I cannot state strongly enough how important it is for Latin teachers to familiarize themselves with the ACTFL reading proficiency descriptions for the Novice and Intermediate levels (which are the levels attainable in a four-year program). Each level is subdivided into low, mid, and high ranges, creating six gradations of reading proficiency. The word “intermediate” has been used in varying ways over the decades by Latin teachers, often without any firm basis for what each has meant by it. The ACTFL guides clearly articulate what students can do at each of the six gradations of proficiency. The novellas in this series are framed by those articulations. It is important to note that these novellas do not follow any sort of a grammar syllabus. With the commitment to a limited vocabulary and writing that is comprehensible at the indicated proficiency level, authors have been free to use whatever grammar is needed to tell a compelling story. This may seem difficult to some teachers at first, but strikingly, when this approach is used, students do not find it difficult, and that is the primary focus.

 

The novella that you hold in your hands, Augury Is for the Birds by Emma Vanderpool, is what the publisher is calling their Level A novella. Vanderpool limited this novella to 144 unique words with a total text of about two thousand words. Vanderpool crafted this novella, as the Level A indicates, for the Novice Low to Novice Mid reading proficiency. A reader at this reading proficiency level will be able to recognize high-frequency words in a context that strongly supports those words used both singly and in short phrases and sentences. This novice reader requires a great deal of repetition, which supports meaning, and may be helped by the use of true cognates. The use of cognates is, however, a bit of a gamble since it depends largely on the reader’s first language. My own experience is that students whose first language is Spanish or Romanian (with strong communities of both in my region of the country) recognize true cognates far more quickly than speakers of English. Teachers of Latin who have been using the ALIRA Latin Reading Proficiency test (co-produced by the American Classical League and ACTFL and based on the reading proficiency guides) find that students consistently score at the Novice Mid to High range by the end of the first year of Latin in US programs where students meet daily for Latin. That gives a helpful marker for this novella: it is appropriate for use in the first year of Latin (and beyond).

 

Vanderpool has not only written a novella within these parameters of vocabulary and proficiency, but she has risen to the challenge of writing in a way that is both consistent with classical Latin and is understandable to students in this proficiency range. Vanderpool has written about Roman religion, about augury, something that many of us love to teach our students about, but she has done it using the particular powers of storytelling. This is no lecture on Roman culture and history. It is a story, but as a story it invites the reader into a landscape, a time, a setting, and a particular set of relationships and influences into which, hopefully, the readers will lose themselves, forget for a moment that they live in another time and that they are reading in another language. We call this experience “getting into the flow,” and when that happens, all kinds of reading magic are possible. When “the flow” happens, language acquisition increases with what seems like no effort, and in this case, the rich culture and history that we love to lecture about has been delivered in a way that students simply will not forget. To the contrary, they very likely will emerge from the novella eager to have more conversations about this thing called augury and all the connections that we are able to make to it for our time.

 

This novella and those in the Encounter Latin series can be used in a number of ways. While space here does not allow for even an outline of potential lesson plans, I am happy to suggest four potential uses and three examples of what that may look like in a Latin classroom.

 

1. Sustained Silent Reading (SSR): We know that there are two forms of input that enable learners to acquire a new language: listening and reading. While both of those are necessary for students to make progress, reading is slightly more effective than listening. Regardless of the rest of the shape and design of a Latin program, having regularly scheduled periods of SSR with material that is appropriate (with vocabulary that is 90–95 percent known by students; comprehensible and compelling) is a real boost for student progress in the language. Teachers may plan SSR on almost any schedule, once a week, twice a week, for a portion of a period (helpful especially on block schedules), or for an entire class period. Whatever plan a teacher chooses, SSR in a Latin classroom provides time for students to read Latin stories at the appropriate level independently. This independent reading enriches and supports all the other work that students may do in collaboration with their teacher and deeply enhances the effects of the novella mentioned above.

 

Another variation of SSR is the degree to which the teacher gives students choice in their reading. There may be local constraints on how much material a teacher can provide for choice, but the appeal of material that is not only understandable but also engaging is enhanced when students have choice. This form of SSR where students may choose between a number of appropriate level novellas is often referred to as FVR—free, voluntary reading. When appropriate material is introduced for this independent period of reading, and students come to expect that it is a regular part of their Latin learning, they will settle into the routine and even complain if it is, for whatever reason, interrupted.

 

2. Enrichment and Differentiation: How individual teachers conceive of enrichment and differentiation will depend largely on how the rest of their program is framed. The times will still come, however, in which they need and want materials to put into the hands of students who are ready for something more. Very often we forget that “something more” can simply mean something different. Teachers can become frustrated when they see that some in their class seem to pick things up very quickly and grow bored or that some students seem to be bored all the time while lagging behind. Putting the appropriate level novella in their hands can be the “something different” that they need. Enrichment can look like what some students do while others receive remediation or receive extra time for assessments. Differentiation can look like a variety of things that we ask a student to do with a novella. It could be to read two pages and consider how the artwork involved reflects what they have read. It could be to read an entire chapter and imagine how the next chapter unfolds. It could be to draw additional artwork for a chapter. In the best sense of differentiation, it may well look like all of those things happening at once in the same classroom.

 

3. Supplementation: For this use of the novella, I have in mind that regardless of what else drives and frames one’s Latin program, a novella of appropriate material can become some of the variety that the human brain craves. Latin programs are framed and driven by textbooks, by themes, by grammar syllabuses, by the adapted works of chosen authors, and by established vocabulary lists. A novella can be used to break up what otherwise becomes the monotony of the program—whatever that is. What I have in mind by supplementation is not, “if we finish the textbook (or units, or district curriculum), we will read a novella.” I mean interrupting whatever that program is in order to read the novella. And I don’t mean interrupt the program until the novella is finished but rather use the novella as an unexpected surprise, variety for the brain, interspersed all through the year.

 

4. Curriculum Content: It is becoming more common for Latin teachers to abandon textbooks (for a variety of reasons). As they look to high-frequency vocabulary lists and themes that allow them to work with all of the national standards (Communication, Culture, Connections, Comparisons, and Community), they would do well to consider making novellas appropriate to the level a featured part of what they do. These novellas have made the commitment to high-frequency vocabulary. They are written creatively in order to be compelling to students in the twenty-first century, and they engage the reader in the culture and history of classical Rome with a deep sensitivity to the multicultural reality of ancient Rome that our materials for far too long have ignored.

 

For the last two possibilities, supplementation and curriculum content, I will suggest, in briefest form, three ways that teachers may structure the use of this novella. We should think of these as three approaches to novella usage in addition to SSR. In other words, a teacher may have established times for SSR. Beyond that, the teacher may plan lessons in the following three ways, and these three approaches are not exclusive of one another. In fact, it is my common practice to make use of all three at all levels of Latin.

 

1. Read and Draw: This is a slow, introductory approach to the story in which the teacher and students read the story aloud together. They take small “bites” of the text together and then in one way or another create drawings to illustrate what they have read and understood. The drawings can be done in several ways: with whiteboards and markers, paper and pencil, computerized devices and drawing software, individually or in groups (one person drawing and the others suggesting details). Drawings may be labeled with Latin words and phrases from the story, given captions taken from the story, or both. An entire chapter can be turned into a four-, six-, or eight-frame cartoon. An entire chapter can be turned into a one-scene drawing that attempts to capture all the detail of the chapter. The Read and Draw approach can be made as short or as long (lasting several days) as the teacher determines is useful to student progress.

 

2. Read and Discuss: As a follow-up to Read and Draw, or without it depending on the needs of students, the teacher and students read portions of a story/chapter together and then in Latin have simple conversations about what they have just read. At lower proficiency levels, those questions can be yes/no questions and questions that explore basic details: quis?, quid?, ubi? As students seem ready, one may venture with the word cur? and its natural response quod. It is in the middle of such Read and Discuss sessions that teachers will see an ideal moment arise in which they may extend the material of the storyline into the personal stories of students. At that moment, the discussion becomes Personal Questions and Answers—still kept at the right level for the proficiency. Perhaps the class has just read that a character non vult augur esse. Before turning to the historical and cultural issues of the book, the teacher might ask several students in turn, visne magister/ra esse (medicus/a, advocatus/a, coquus/a, faber/ra, machinarius/a)?, and see where that will lead before returning to the storyline and discussion. (NB: I have created some feminine forms of words that don’t exist in classical Latin. I have followed conventions for doing so. I strongly believe that we must do this to make it clear that chefs, teachers, and auto mechanics can be jobs that anyone is drawn to. That is a major feature of personalizing conversation in a language—it is only personal if it describes the people in the room). It does not matter that these words for modern jobs are not in the students’ current vocabulary list. They will be drawn to the opportunity to speak about themselves before going on with a description of the character in the book.

 

3. Read and Write: When and only when students seem to have a strong grasp of a chapter or segment of a novella, it is appropriate to ask them to write about it in Latin (noting that writing in a second language always lags behind the reading proficiency). At lower proficiency levels, the writing can be a simple summary. Teachers can give students time to write, in Latin, about the characters and events of the appointed segment of the story. The time may be limited or not, but I find that students at all levels do better at this when they do not feel the pressure of time (so what may seem to the teacher as a ten to fifteen minute task may go much better for everyone in the room if they are given thirty minutes to do it, without announcing the time frame). In any regard, Read and Write is an approach to take at the end of a process, not at the beginning. It is most fruitful when the teacher has a sense that everyone is truly understanding the reading and has engaged with it already through drawings and class discussion. What to do with the writings (as in assessment) is a full and long consideration that we cannot do here, but suffice it to say that this writing does not require the teacher’s scrutiny for error correction, but can be a helpful way of checking in to see that students are understanding what they are reading.

 

I am pleased to be able to introduce this first of several novellas in the B-C series that will only enhance and enrich the material through comprehensible and compelling novellas that Latin teachers have to draw on—novellas that did not exist even five years ago. These are not novellas that simply recast or adapt ancient authors. The authors who are creating them are seeking to invite the two worlds—ancient and modern—to see each other and to value the full scope of humanity that has always been there but has not always been seen or heard. If these novellas contribute more fully to that conversation, as I think they will, then there has never been a better time to teach and learn Latin.

 

Robert Patrick

 

 

 

Dr. Patrick has been the recipient of multiple awards including Teacher of the Year at Parkview High School in 2009, Latin Teacher of the Year in 2011 for the state of Georgia, Foreign Language teacher of the year in the state of Georgia in 2012, Teacher of the Year in 2013 for the Southern Conference on Language Teaching, and Teacher of the Year Finalist in 2014 for the American Council on Teaching Foreign Languages. He has also received the Meritus Award from the American Classical League (2015), the Excellence in Teaching Pre-Collegiate from the Society of Classical Studies (2017), and most recently, the Kraft Excellence in Secondary Teaching from the Classical Association of the Middle West and South (2020).

Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers is thrilled to announce brand-new Lumina content that is now available: online exercises to accompany the Caesar and Vergil selections on the AP Latin syllabus! With its comprehensive, completely original content, Lumina: Caesar and Vergil Selections is a perfect complement to Bolchazy-Carducci's print and eBook resources for AP Latin. Better yet, Lumina: Caesar and Vergil Selections works on any internet-enabled device!

 

Features

To support teachers going remote this fall, content will be made available in stages. Multiple choice and free response questions for Vergil's Aeneid, Books 1 and 2, and Caesar's De Bello Gallico, Books 1, 4, and 6, are now available. The rest of the syllabus will be available October 26 or sooner. Practice exam content will follow.

 

To learn more, visit the Lumina: Caesar and Vergil Selections product page and watch the overview video.

 Lumina: Online Guided Practice to Accompany LNM

Lumina online content offers new resources to support LNM, Levels 1 and 2. The interactive guided Language Fact sections provide immediate feedback to students as they preview or review each chapter of Latin for the New Millennium Level 1 or Level 2. Mouse-over vocabulary lists allow a new format for vocabulary mastery. Infinitely replayable crossword puzzles engage students in derivative work. Automatically graded quizzes free up student-teacher interaction time for translation, oral/aural work, discussion, and other learning activities. For a brief overview of the program, check out this video.

 Artes Latinae: A Self-Teaching,

Lumina offers a revamped Artes Latinae. This fully interactive online program teaches all of Latin grammar in two courses. Purchase the program at a special discounted price of 25% off! For a brief overview of the program, check out this video.

Based on the program developed by Dr. Waldo E. Sweet of the University of Michigan for Encyclopedia Britannica, Lumina: Artes Latinae is an easy-to-follow course that includes all the tools a student needs to achieve a firm command of Latin. The course was carefully crafted and refined to suit the needs and abilities of a broad spectrum of students. Lumina: Artes Latinae meets existing foreign language requirements for high school graduation.

Contact us for an individual consultation on any program: bridget@bolchazy.com.

 

by Sylvia Gray

 Ask the Ancients: Astonishing Advice for Daily DilemmasSatyricon

141 pages, paperback
ISBN 13: 978-0-86516-818-3 $19.00   $9.50