Weekly Reading: Sept. 30

1. What was the chapter about?
Chapter 3 in DZ discussed how over-used textbooks are and the reasons why textbooks are not a reliable resource: they are inaccurate, disorganized, poorly visually formatted, unfocused, broad but shallow in focus, and expensive. In addition, they are a static resource: they cannot, by nature, take into account new information or discoveries, and they are difficult to personalize to a specific class.

Chapter 4 in DZ promotes building a classroom library to incorporate into your courses, whether by assigning readings or by leaving it as a resource for students to borrow from and read. The materials should cover a wide variety of topics, genres, and reading levels so that they appeal to as many students as possible.

Allen discusses the enduring value of reading aloud to students, even if they are at an age where they find it silly or childish. It frees students to think about and interact with the text, rather than focusing on deciphering the words on the page. It also helps the students to hear the flow and rhythm of the language, particularly in formats which were originally written to be consumed orally (plays, poems, songs, etc.)

Harvey promotes nonfiction as the most valuable genre for students to read. He states that, because adults overwhelmingly read nonfiction as opposed to fiction, students should plan ahead and learn to read and enjoy nonfiction as well. However, this nonfiction should be chosen carefully, so that students are reading short, well-written, interesting pieces rather than long, wordy, or boring reference manuals.

2. What does this chapter tell you about teaching students?
Supplement a class with non-textbook resources as often as possible. This way, you can focus on important concepts and your students' interests, the students have less weight to carry home each day, and you can save money from buying textbooks to spend it on more valuable materials.

Supplementary materials allow you to dig deeper into a topic (which is a big tenant of Common Core), as well as capture and hold students' interest. Without interest in a subject, students will not pay attention and will not remember the topic even if they did pay attention.

Reading aloud to my students may be a good way to get my students' interest. Even if they think the activity is childish, reading aloud can help the students to focus on and absorb the text. Just be careful not to overwhelm their attention span the first time, or to let them goof off and distract the class during the reading.

Nonfiction is a powerful format for teaching information to students, and it can be just as interesting as a fiction book. They are also very easy to find, from websites to children's books and magazines to adults' "fun facts" collections and trade books.

3. Can this chapter be applied in your content area?
I already don't teach out of my textbook. I have taken the vocabulary lists from the textbook units and the (approximate) order of grammar concepts, but beyond that, my students do not use the textbook. We have a set of Latin for Americans sitting in the room, but I don't think that we've used them yet. The trouble with not using a textbook for Latin is that you must then supply all the translation passages and sentences -- unlike modern languages, Latin doesn't have a wealth of children's books to teach topics, and each grammar book goes in a different order and uses a different vocabulary list. As DZ's author noted, the supplementary materials for a textbook are often as boring and unhelpful as the textbook itself. This means that finding ready-made materials is very difficult, but writing practice texts is time-consuming as well.

I can collect culture resources easily enough -- pop culture has an eternal fascination with Roman history, culture, and mythology -- but the most valuable pieces are the most difficult to find. I need well-written and interesting pieces in Latin which are written at the different levels of my students' knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. I cannot give them a passage which uses the perfect tenses or pronouns (and especially not the subjunctive mood) if they haven't learned those topics yet, and rewriting a passage to fit their knowledge is tedious, time-consuming, difficult, and sometimes grammatically impossible. At the same time, my students desperately need the practice translating such pieces, because the only way to learn a language is to use it.

I can incorporate reading aloud to my students into translating -- they need to know how to pronounce the Latin anyway, and reading to them will help their oral comprehension greatly. To give them a sense of how authentic Latin sounds in English, I can read translations of texts to them, or (if I am feeling particularly ambitious) translate a short text in front of them. I can also give them short articles on everything from mythology to social structure to gender norms to conquered nations. As I already mentioned, mainstream American culture is endlessly fascinated by the Romans and ancient Greeks, and there is a wealth of material out there to give students, both academic and mainstream.

Weekly Reading: Sept. 23rd

DZ Chapters 5-6
1. What was the chapter about?
The 5th chapter covered different strategies to get students to think constructively about their reading. These activities were sorted into categories of before reading, during reading, and after reading. There was also a section of tips for teaching vocabulary. The 6th chapter covered strategies for teaching from a textbook -- particularly ways to cover all the important material for a course without making students read every page in the book.
2. What does this chapter tell you about teaching students?
Students need help to organize information into ways that make sense to them and into ways which will help them remember. If you let (or tell) students read a text without guidance, then they may read the material, but they will rarely remember or understand the information, let alone be able to accurately summarize it and identify important concepts. You have to provide that guidance and structure for students, especially at the beginning.
3. Can this chapter be applied in your content area?
Yes. I don't currently use the textbook very often (except for generating Latin word lists and deciding which grammar concepts to cover and in which order) because the explanations and exercises are subpar, but my students do need to know how to translate and how to read informational texts about Roman culture and history. Those texts will require structure, particularly when translating.

BBR Chapter 1
1. What was the chapter about?
The (very short) chapter discussed why teaching reading is important for every subject and introduced the concept that every subject has a different type of reading which they need to teach to their students.
2. What does this chapter tell you about teaching students?
Just as there are different types of reading for the different subject matters, there are different skills involved in making sense of those different types of information. Students need to learn those skills before they can be expected to make sense of new types of information.
3. Can this chapter be applied in your content area? 
Yes -- how many first-year students of Latin have ever translated something from one language into another before? (And "pig Latin" doesn't count as a language.) They may have read cultural or history articles before, but the majority have not translated, or even had to think about grammar in such a structured way. English grammar is so instinctive that students understand an English passage without needing to analyze its grammar to find the subject or direct object, but in Latin, students do need to do that.

Web Resource: UNRV

UNRV stands for United Nations of Roma Victrix (Rome the conqueror). It is a miniature encyclopedia on all things Roman, with short articles on culture, mythology, military, etc. This site is very straightforward, and it could serve as a good way to let students explore their own interests in Roman history and culture while still limiting their sources to reliable ones. The creators of the site openly state that it is meant to be an introduction to Roman history, not a definitive resource.

The site has no advertisements and few pictures, so it is neither commercial nor very visually appealing -- the background color is very dark, which was an unfortunate choice. The site's strengths lie in its short, informative articles to pique students' interest, the many subtopics, and its ease of navigation. This is a site which I could send my students to and let them find something which interests them, without worrying that they will stumble across something heinous. (Or at least, no more heinous than the average daily life of Rome.) The site is free to access and has no advertisements, so those concerns are removed -- I have heard horror stories of inappropriate ads appearing during class demonstrations.

Its weaknesses lie in the brevity of those articles, and the dearth of pictures and interactivity. Unless students are motivated to read the articles themselves, they may well zone out and decide to do something else.

Weekly Reading: Sept. 16th

Tovani Ch 3-4

1. What was the chapter about?

Chapter 3 talked about modeling reading strategies that you use with the type of reading in your content area to teach students how to read those types of texts. As the resident expert, the reading which they are doing is probably very easy for you, so you need to find a text which challenges you and use that to demonstrate the reading techniques to children.

Chapter 4 talked about the difference between academic rigor and individual text difficulty. Text A may be assigned by the county, but if it is too hard for your students to read, then they will not learn anything from it. Text B may be much easier to read, but if it teaches the students how to read and something about the content, then it may be rigorous for them.

2. What does this chapter tell you about teaching students?

Model for your kids! Just because reading is instinctive for you, does not mean that it is instinctive for them. They may have never seen this sort of reading before and have no clue how to approach it. Also, have many options for texts which they can read, both background and direct. Ex: Latin culture books and Latin translation books.

3. Can this chapter be applied in your content area?

So much yes. I was actually planning to work on translation with my students this week (now that they have enough Latin skills to approach a basic translation), so this reading came at the perfect time. I’ve been having trouble remembering that Latin I is still HARD to these kids, even though—for me—it’s at the level of “so instinctive it’s boring.” I need to remember that I still have to model for these kids what to do, since they may have never had to work through skills like this.

Bakken & Whedon

1. What was the chapter about?

This was about reading academic, informational texts.

2. What does this chapter tell you about teaching students?

Different types of reading need different types of reading strategies and different types of note-taking.

3. Can this chapter be applied in your content area?

When we get into studying culture, yes. Many days, I lecture to my students or have them play games instead of reading a text, but when we study culture, I can do reading activities which will require these skills. Depending on what sort of translation text they are reading, they may need these skills as well.

Weekly Readings: Sept. 9th

Hart & Risley

1. What was the chapter about?

This article reported the results of a research project which compared the amount of words to which babies and toddlers are exposed, based on the economic level of their families. Students with low SES are exposed to about one-third the words of their high SES peers by age 3.
2. What does this chapter tell you about teaching students?

Students in poorer areas may not be struggling because they don't care; they may be struggling because they simply don't know the language that you are using with them.
3. Can this chapter be applied in your content area?

Yes -- slow down, explain new terms (especially grammar terms) in more depth and repeat them more, and be conscious of each students' background.

Fitzgerald & Graves

1. What was the chapter about?This article discusses ways to support ELL students in a regular classroom with scaffolding.
2. What does this chapter tell you about teaching students?Some students -- especially ELLs, but even native English speakers -- need extra help to read texts. This is normal, and even desirable when the teacher wants to increase their reading level. I'm in Dr. Brown's add-on ESL licensure cohort, and I found it interesting that this article didn't explicitly state that the same techniques which help ELLs also help struggling (and highly achieving!) native English speakers. With scaffolding, prereading, and postreading, there really is no way to hurt your students.
3. Can this chapter be applied in your content area?

 I'm going to need this all the time. No matter what I teach -- Latin or ESL -- my students will be learning about a new language and culture, in a language not their own. I will need to give my students context for their reading and make sure that they understand what they're being exposed to.

Daniels & Zemelman (D&Z) Ch 7
1. What was the chapter about?
This chapter advocates building a community of learners -- teaching students to work together to help each other learn -- so that students are more motivated, more cooperative, more comfortable, and ultimately more successful.
2. What does this chapter tell you about teaching students?
Students can often teach each other more effectively than you can teach them. Appeal to students' interests to get them to learn -- and be excited about learning! Meet with students individually to address specific concerns and to prevent students shutting down from embarrassment, lack of knowledge, or insecurity.
3. Can this chapter be applied in your content area?
 Most of this chapter will work in Latin. Some of the "appeal to students' interests" advice would be more difficult to work in, since Latin doesn't have many of the modern conveniences which students now take for granted, but I can find analogies for most things. I know I have two athletes in my Latin I class, and Rome had sports...though not the ones which my students are familiar with.

Readability

I don't actually use a textbook in my Latin I class -- my mentor teacher doesn't use Latin for Americans I (LFA) except as an occasional source for readings, and I've followed her lead. I also left my (falling apart) copy of LFA at school over the weekend.

Instead, I chose Wheelock's Latin, which is one of the most widely known and respected introductory Latin books. It's the standard text at UTK for 100 level Latin classes, and I know that my old high school teacher sometimes uses it as a Latin III textbook instead of LFA II.

I chose the Flesch Method to calculate readability, and I typed in the first paragraphs of two chapters of Wheelock: Chapter 1, which introduces verbs, and Chapter 18, which introduces passive voice and the ablative of agent. (Wheelock has 40 chapters total.) I received a readability score of 53.4 for "Flesch Reading Ease" and a score of 11.0 for "Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level." This is several grade levels above the recommended level, although high school students would likely not use this book until after they have taken a few semesters of Latin, at which point their reading level would be closer to this.