The Latin Zone

So, I've spent most of the summer so far working on my Aeneid syllabus and making materials I want to use for this year.

Basically I'm creating a lot of work for myself.  In some ways.  But I have two aims in mind: 1) have LESS work to do for AP during the year so that it will be almost all pleasure to teach, and 2) create ways to help all of my AP students be successful.  And, yes, I could just blow off this summer, and just kick it all into high gear next school year, but I want to be able to go to my Tae Kwon Do class this year (I didn't all of last year, and I really missed it).

The first thing I've done is revised my syllabus to fit with next year's calendar and to switch the assignments from being weekly to daily. That is, I've gone through and broken down the lines by day, scheduled quizzes, review, and enrichment activities.  If we can't do everything, so be it.  It's not set in stone.  What my students need will really guide me.  I even added topics covered for each week so that I can see at a glance when we get to X doing Y in the story. 

Of course, revising my schedule in this kind of detail has been time consuming, but if you don't have to cheat (that is, because you are new and really need to use someone else's syllabus to get you off the ground and running), it is so worthwhile.  I'd like to think that if I were doing a masters of teaching in Latin that this might a sort of project that I would do.  (I have no idea what projects MAT programs do, outside of the CANE resource materials.)  And I don't just mean revising my syllabus.  I'm thinking about the whole student.

High school students, unlike college students, in general don't own their textbooks thus they cannot write in them.  I know there are some people that would never write in any book.  I know there are some that would cram English above every line of Latin.  I do not do the latter nor would I ever advocate that.  HOWEVER, I would definitely advocate marking phrasing and whatnot, and for particularly difficult lines make notes in the margins.  This past year I really wanted my Latin 3 students to see phrasing and therefore typed out all the stories we read in Unit 4 (but only Unit 4 of CLC), double-spaced it, and gave it to the students to write on.  The idea was that we'd use ONLY the book in class (clean text) but that they could study from their notes. It worked ok. 

So, one of the things I'm doing is copying and pasting the lines of Vergil from www.thelatinlibrary.com into assignment sheets that would last for each week. (Of course, this will probably need tweeking each year; will this be worth it?)   What I want is for students NOT to TRANSLATE every damn word onto paper.  This is NOT a class on turning Latin into English.  I want to promote READING.  I want to help students develop READING skills and to do so help them learn to see phrases and clauses and THE BIG PICTURE while keeping mindful of all the details.  I'm also creating a reading log that they will need to maintain for a homework grade.  If I punch holes in these sheets and continuously encourage careful storage of them, then students will have created their own review materials to cram from before the exam.  My students this last year had, well, nothing but quizzes and tests to look at.  Not good enough.

I'm also including on the print-outs small sections in bold to be translated into good English PLUS prepared for oral recitation.  Oh, and scanned.  Weekly.  I'm going through a website that has all the old AP questions in order to target passages that have been asked and may well be targetted again.  So the passages that will be key passages for review come exam time should be the passages that they are the most familiar with.  Sounds good in theory, at least.

Finally, I'm working in at least essay prep (if not full essay writing) in some compare/contrast stuff--previous AP questions that asked for students to look at two passages.  I'm also going to do this with comparing a passage and a work of art or some famous person's translation.  I want to mark these passages too (in italics or something) on the sheets of text I'm working on. 

I know I can't do it all this summer, and in fact I really need to turn my attention to something else I want to do with my level 1-3 classes this year (more in another post), but to me it's all about finding a way to teach successfully.  One might say that I'm doing half the work for the students, that other teachers would just make the students write out or type out the lines themselves (I know of one teacher who does).  But these are students that also are in extracurricular activities and other AP classes.  This isn't like college where students are in classes for a few hours each day and have the rest of the day off to study and prepare.  I poured HOURS AND HOURS into preparing my lines for my Latin classes in college.  HOURS AND HOURS. 

I'm into reality.  I don't want my students saying to me that they like Latin until AP because AP was soooo much hard work.  I want them to think of it as challenging, but not impossible.  I want them to feel like they've accomplished something grand, you know?

Anyway.  That's what I'm doing this summer.

Some things strike me the same.  That is, what was my biggest problem this year?  As always, classroom management.  I had a couple of years where I felt totally on charge, but not lately. Not in Dripping.  For the most part, I don't need much out in Drip; the kids are for the most parat well-behaved.

But my own sheer exhaustion and inability to keep up with the work meant that I couldn't keep up with my own classroom management scheme, which only works well if I you are CONSISTENT every day.    Anyway.  Something to rethink, again, this summer.  I swear, that is the hardest part of teaching. Or at least it is for me because I like an interactive class, but one that stays on task.  I like it relaxed; I don't like it so rigid that people feel uncomfortable. You can't learn that way.  Equally, students were pissed at me--as I knew they would be--that I didn't have 3rd period under better control.

Whatever.

I've looked at evaluations from Latin 1's and Latin 3/4.  I haven't looked at Latin 2. 

There was the inevitable "AP is tedious because all we do is read."  Once again, if I can't make reading (Latin or English) interesting and exciting, no one can.  OK, yes, this first time through Vergil we didn't do much but read.  The Illuminated manuscript project at the end was both fun and interesting.  I'm thinking that maybe, somehow, I need to work in some projects of some kind.  In fact, I really liked what I was doing with Ovid and the Latin 3's, in trying to get them to analyse a work of art (Daedalus and Icarus) for the quality of the interpretation of the Latin. 

If we say that Vergil is to Latin as Homer is to Ancient Greek and Shakespeare is to English, then it is important to keep the focus on Vergil as a work of literature.  And my emphasis on trying to teach students HOW TO READ in word order because we are all about READING is not out of line.  BUT...but this isn't college, yet.  So what that our college courses were "read the next XX lines" plus "one paper" and a "final exam".  Some would find that tedious too.  But that's a college level Latin class.  For the most part. 

Yet, does that need to be what we are about?  If we are to demonstrate the profound impact Vergil has had on literature AND the arts, we need to bring in the arts and discuss it.  We did watch a one-hour production (?) of the opera Dido and Aeneas after the AP test.  But should this stuff have come before? 

After all, if the projects are designed well (and executed well?), they should provide the student an opportunity to review the text in depth and to write about it.

I know I wasn't demanding enough with my AP students; it was hard to be when I was barely keeping up.  This too I can change.   

And perhaps instead of just "going over lines" which I definitely slipped into with my upper division classes this year (kind of hard not to in some ways), why not have a thematic question for each assignment of lines?  (Hey, not a bad idea.)  That is, if they are working on their own for X days while I work with Latin 3 (because it will be split level again), why not say that on the day we go over they need to be able to answer whatever the thematic question, and be ready to support the answers with Latin from the text.  Then, we'd go to the text to look again which would then lead into going over the lines.

Sounds good.  But since they will be struggling with the Latin, how good is this really?

One can dream.

Boy, I thought I had written a great, detailed rubric.  Hard to not give me what I wanted because not only was it all explained in detail but I had EXAMPLES.

But still....not the quality I wanted.  And so I'm looking at my rubric again, trying to decide HOW to make it better for next year.

The project was on the Daedalus and Icarus from Ovid (CLC Stage 44) which I had Latin 3s working on while I madly reviewed AP's on Vergil.  The project was for 3 weeks--week one reading the passages and going over them together, week two assigning each student 2 sections (different sections) to make a commentary out of for a student (not unlike themselves) totally new to Ovid, with vocabulary to the right of the passage and notes beneath.  I even provided the table for the passages and vocab and notes set up as a template so it was hard to get the arrangement of text wrong on the page.

I provided details of how I wanted vocab--bold, plus proper dictionary entries (nouns with genitives, verbs with 4 principle parts, etc).

I gave examples for the kind of notes I wanted.  The notes were where all went wrong.  Some didn't do much with them--identified tenses and such.  Only one tried to give me the kind of explanations I was after--types of subjunctive clauses, etc.  His weren't perfect--but I could at least see that he was THINKING ABOUT THE LATIN IN THE RIGHT WAY!

So, I could bitch and moan about it, or consider how I can make my instructions even CLEARER for next year.  Plus, if I want this to count as a quiz grade, I shouldn't leave our first time doing this for the last thing I do with them before finals.  So for starters I'm going to do something similar with Martial next year (stage 36).  They can LEARN from that one--the easier, shorter one--so that the major one (the Ovid) is both beautiful and high quality (and NOT the crap I've just waded through).

I'm thinking of also doing similar things somehow with my AP classes next year.  Something to ponder this summer.  I'd like to think it makes the student think about how firm their grasp is on the Latin and where it is lacking.  Not surprisingly, my top two students both did the best on the project, with my top student showing the greatest understanding for what I wanted with the grammar/notes section.  Even still....

There was actually a 2nd part to this project--an analysis and synthesis part for  either creating an artistic interpretation or translation or analyzing an interpretation/work or art.  Admittedly my rubric for this one was less detailed than my VERY detailed commentary one and thus the projects were definitely lacking.  I have to refine this next year.

I just don't want to be one of those teachers whose projects are so whimpy that they CAN be done the night before or the class before with a bit of glue or tape borrowed from another teacher.  I'm tired of crap projects.  Sadly, I know my son has done a bunch of projects like that this year AND gotten good grades on them.  And as teachers, it's our own fault.  We allow it.

Part of the trick is creating a project that does require quality, that we work it into our rubric, that we demand the quality.  And that we aren't wimps feeling sorry for students at the end.  That's my other problem.  Half the time I feel like their crappy work is the fault of my inadequate instructions because I know that otherwise good students would have done better if my instructions had been clearer.  I mean, I can tell the difference between a drawing that took several hours to create vs a posterboard glued up during the last period, and the latter will only pass if it provides the information needed and will certainly not get an A.  But the artwork, beautiful as it might be, may not also get an A because it was missing criteria that I wasn't clear enough on.  Or so I think, because I know the student is otherwise consciencious. 

So I'm a wimp.  Or, I'm trying to be fair.  (I guess I hated all those teachers I had who were UNCLEAR and thus cost me the grade I was after...)

Right. Back to grading.

Do other teachers think this way?

I'm always about how to do it better next year.  NEXT year.  I guess that's an improvement from beating myself up over having only done so much THIS year.

Next year.... dum spiro spero, ya know.

But first, what did I accomplish this year?  It's good to remind yourself, especially if you are a new teacher or a teacher at a new school building a new program of what you DID do!  Go ahead, take a bow!  The Romans weren't shy.  They definitely tooted their own horns!

So, what did I do?

1) had my first year in Drip' with a FULL LATIN PROGRAM!  My 3rd year and I had 100 more students than my first year there.
2) had my first AP VERGIL class.  And my gosh was it enjoyable. Ok, it wasn't as rigorous as it could have been but I think the girls (2 of them) enjoyed it.  I could have had them work harder, do more, but I couldn't keep up with the work myself!  They survived, and learned.  And now, they are enjoying learning a bit about calligraphy. So cool!
3) taught Latin 3 for the first time out of Cambridge. My goal was to get to stage 40 and we made it there handily.  I didn't get a chance to teach conditional clauses, but there are worse things. After all, when did you ever meet one in context that followed the pattern of the textbooks?!?!   
4) created quia material for Latin 3 and AP Vergil, though I still need to make some more for Vergil.  For every 100 lines assigned, I probably only got 60-80 lines of online quia quizzes done.  But it was ok.  It was good.  That stuff is *there* for next year, and it will be good enough if I have another year from hell as a parent.  Wow.  It is all there.  That's something.  You wanna see?

www.quia.com/pages/drippinglatin3.html
www.quia.com/pages/drippingvergil.html

5) I think my illumination project is going ok.
6) I think my Ovid project was ok, though I need to finish grading it.
7) I SURVIVED THE YEAR--with the work of 4 preps, 2 of them "new", as well as my special needs son's transition (such as it was) to middle school, and my elder son's transition (such as it was, ha) to high school.  Let's just say there's a reason why I have a double scotch on ice sitting next to me as I type this.

Students did well enough on NLE, though only one got a gold. The principal complimented me on the accomplishments of my students today (after this week's underclassmen awards assembly). Nice.  And she knows it's been a hard year.

So that's where I've been.

FUTURE PLANS:

1) interactive grammar notebook, good for all four years with me.  That is, I want to plan it out this summer so that I have pages left for ALL the grammar a student could possibly accumulate in four years of Latin with me.  Perhaps more on this later.
2) quia.com exercises that are *challenges* in composition and transformation, for the students that want more.  I have enough there to train up a student to do well on one of my tests or quizzes, but why not MORE?  Maybe there won't be too many students using the *challenge* materials, but maybe there will. 
3) making some tar heel readers.  :)  Here's a good one:  
   http://tarheelreader.org/2009/05/22/canis-meus-furcifer/
and another good one
http://tarheelreader.org/2009/05/08/de-leone/
These are soooo cool!  Oh oh oh, I cannot WAIT to make one!  But how can I make one truly *brilliant*?  :)  No matter; I will think up one.
4) More projects for AP.  Of course, this means finding TIME to grade such beasts and I will have at least 10 more students next year than this year, and I've barely survived this year.  CRAZY!  EEK.

And I just *have* to find a way to get the Latin 3's to reread more. And AP for that matter.  I never reread in college; but then no one suggested I do so either.  I do remember that it was all such incredibly hard WORK then--but now, it seems so much easier. Well, I guess 10 years of teaching it and 15 years of thinking about how to be a better reader will do that.  I've had 10 years of getting to know the basics INSIDE OUT.  A student doesn't have that.  Back in college I remember a prof telling me that the way to become better at reading Latin was to read more Latin--yet that was such a slow and painful process!  I couldn't imagine reading MORE!  But he never said this: you should read for pleasure at a lower, easier rate.  After all, isn't this what we do with English?  I can read technical journals in educationese or even something detailed about Latin pedagogy or archaeology, etc.  But for pleasure I'm reading something that my brain can coast through.

I got those readers-but only 15 (eheu!)-Lingua Latina.  The question is, HOW will I use them next year?  HOW can I possibly find time to incorporate them INTO my classes without losing precious class time needed to get through the text?  BUT I *must* use them; I must show students HOW to develop reading skills.  Should I wait and just do them with the Latin 3's?

That's another thing. I intend to boost homework a bit in Latin 3 next year (ha...will she really do it?!?!?!) .  The 2 year credit to pass kids will be gone, and if they want 3rd year credit, they can damn well work for it.  Conjugating and declining all vocabulary.  All degress of nouns and adjectives.  I better have a couple of aides to help me grade such stuff.  God knows *I* won't keep up with it! hahahhaha.  Too busy grading tests and quizzes.

The ultimate goal is to make a student that's better prepared for Vergil.  A student that is ready to cope with details of case or tense or voice or mood.  This year I've done a MUCH better job of teaching passive voice. That will be a BIG help with next year.  I think I've also been better at teaching perfect passive as opposed to perfect active participles, ablative of agent vs ablative of means, ablative time when vs accusative duration of time.

I'm still to slack about some things.  This will cost me in the end, I realize.  But I always develop 5 year or 10 year plans--because we aren't teachers 24/7.  We're also wives and mothers and human beings with lives.  Or wanting to have lives.

But if you are a teacher and it's May, like it is now, and you aren't actively taking stock of what you did well and need to improve on, then you just have a job.  You don't have a vocation.  I am called to teaching.  odi et amo--I hate it and I love it.  I know my sleep deprivation is ruining my health (not to mention the stress of my family situation), but I think I'm good at what I do and I enjoy the students.  I'm doing something right, and that feels good.  And the thought that I can improve upon what I do feels even better!

Here's to noble causes!

Right now my Latin 2's are taking a test.  I felt pleased with the test and the test review.  Some aspects, perhaps, could have been harder.  Maybe.  I guess the things I'm pleased about, because they mean I won't feel there was something MORE I could have done, are focused on review material I had online.

One of the things I added was a "little words" section.  Those words REALLY trip students up.  I've decided I'm going to make a "little words" section to prep for every test.  I'm tired of the translation portion of the test having all the little adverbs dropped!!!

In fact, this is such an easy, doable fix, adding such a section as a review.  PLUS it's something that will help them infinitely in AP.

Anyway.  Each year I feel I get a little closer to meeting everyone's needs.  There are some students you could say, "just go home and study" but we know that's not most students, certainly not these days.  And I want to have a larger Latin program.  I keep saying that (because of the fear of teaching ENGLISH!) but I don't suppose I should really want a much larger program.  I'm not sure how we're going to schedule next year at this rate.  

But back to the tests, and from the tests to the quizzes and to AP.  Vocabulary.  Everyone is always talking about how to get students to acquire more or internalize more vocabulary.  Well, ideally we'd  like them to constantly work at it.  But we have to prod them to do so; very, very few will do this on their own.  This is why in the past (or currently) most AP classes are very small.  I don't want my AP classes to be small (and self-selecting/full of brainiacs).  Why can't I find a way to get more students there??

My Latin 3 quizzes, which I may have mentioned previously, have vocab in context (as do all my quizzes) PLUS the last quiz's vocab in matching.  I like this.  I'm not sure how well it's really getting them to remember vocab over the long haul, but it makes them responsible for a little while longer.

What I'd like to do is have the time to make a list of what Vergilian words are in CLC and have a special section for those, maybe.  I dunno.  CLC is certainly good with Vergilian vocab.  I've been really impressed this year to realize how early on it will stick in hard to remember words in the stories.

And as for the projects I mentioned in the title...  While I'm reviewing the APs (panic panic test next week!), the Latin 3's are doing this intensive project based on the Ovid in stage 44 (Daedalus and Icarus).  Last week it was going through the lines/reading them the first time.  I know they don't read with the level of attention to detail that I'd like (well, some of them), so they are doing this project that is kind of like annotation or making a commentary where they have 2 of the 5 passages to type up and have glossed vocab (as much as a true novice might need--I tell them if they had to look it up for themselves, they should include it in the vocab list!), and notes on all grammar, really (or at least one thing per line!).  I'm going to distribute copies after I grade them (so I say!), and then NEXT WEEK they will be making something CREATIVE based on one of the passages.  Picture, mosaic, poetic translation (with rhymes at least--not just free verse as an excuse for lazy writing), etc.  I'm thinking I might include for the less creative and more analytical, the option of creating a powerpoint of art based on the text and explaining why or why not the art is a good interpretation of the Latin.

Yea, well, if this works out well (the rubric and project description were detailed), I'm going to do it again, maybe (probably) with the Vergil class next year.  Maybe once a 9 weeks. 

It's the first project I've felt good about.  Time to grade.

I am bad at assessment.

Ok, that's not entirely true.  I'm boring at assessment.

We've been studying these curriculum outlines that the core subjects put together at school. We're supposed to be...well, I dunno, analyzing them, looking for areas where we overlap, anything.  We were looking at Math this morning and realizing, among other things, that we in foreign language/LOTE were glad we didn't have ours posted yet.  First of all, when we all started putting our stuff together, there was no idea that everyone else would be looking at them nor what for.  We're supposed to, for instance, look for technology being used.  Sometimes there's nothing written down, but it doesn't mean it isn't being used.

Anyway, someone made a comment today about how repetetive and unimaginative quizzes and tests were for assessment.  Yup.  I totally agree.  And yet....and yet for the most part that's all I'm doing.

And I know that's bad.  I know that's wrong.  I just feel strapped.  Trapped.  Cornered.  By time constraints, by conventions, by the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few or the one.

Ok, with that said, my quizzes and tests aren't ...hmmm...fluff.  And I'm not trying to dis multiple choice quizzes and tests.  You can make tough quizzes that way, but sometimes it's just not enough.  I mean, if I wanted to make my life EASIER and didn't care--really care (perhaps too much?) about students learning, I'd make everything I do multiple choice scantron.  Easy to grade, no mess.  But I don't.

For instance, my current tests now follow this format:

1) unseen passage with short answer reading comp questions in Latin and English (hand written short answers)
2) grammar questions over the passage (multiple choice)
3) written translation of a small selection from stories we've read in the stages/chapters covered on the test.  (about 25 words)
4) grammar questions in context (multiple choice)
5) culture questions (multiple choice or true false).

Numbers 1 and 3 take time to grade.  HOW EASY my life would be if I did only scantron tests!  But here's why I don't:

1) I need to see what they can do with an unseen passage where recognizing the right answer isn't an option
2) I need to train students to a) be able to write a good translation when needed (for AP!) and b) to reread stories.

I guess part of it isn't assessment; part of it is training the student to be a better student. <sigh> (but is it working?)   

I wish I had time for more.  I do.  I would have essays or special translation assignments.  More creative things.  I would love to do something like once a grading period (or twice?) pick a story from the text and do something with it. In fact, at one point I did write up more or less and outline of what I'd like the project to be like, but I never had time to work up a rubric or anything and frankly  I'm terrified to assign projects because I saw what happened with such beasts when I taught English.  They became very little about learning what you were TRYING to get the student to learn and more about those who finish projects and those who don't.  But, if memory serves, I had this idea that one 9 week students would do an oral performance--memorizing and reciting a story, another 9 weeks it would be an illustration of a story, another 9 weeks it would be a PowerPoint of a story, and another 9 weeks it would be writing a new ending to a story.

But those things take time, and guidance in class, etc.

But I digress.

You cannot tell on my tests what all I assess nor what I'm doing with them.  But they are a major assessment grade.  And vocab quizzes.  And very little else.

I don't look like a good teacher on paper at all.  Just average. 

I have more rambling thoughts on this but I'm needed elsewhere. Maybe later.

I sent this to Latin Best Practices earlier today.  And, yes, the purse has been found, so no worries there.  I felt the need to vent.  If I ever quit teaching I want to get on with a publisher precisely to be the one to include the damned macrons!  This is so stupid when it is so easy to typeset with macrons in this day and age!  ARG!

***

Ok, I know I'm warped about this, but I'm grading tests, depressed over my missing/stolen purse, and had a random idea about writing a Latin story, looked up to my bookshelf, and grabbed a new text off the shelf to look at/consult regarding the idea.  I won't go into what new text this is. And it probably is really good. 
 
I opened it and immediately put it down.  No macrons.  There's lots of new vocab on the page, words I won't know how to pronounce naturally because my mommy wasn't an ancient Roman so I have never heard these words before.  Oh, sure, there are macrons in the back in the glossary, but that would mean actually LOOKING UP every single new word if I want to be sure.
 
I *want* to learn new vocab in context.  I want to learn new vocab by NOT looking up every damn word.  I want to read it and HEAR IT and FIX it in my head.  I WANT TO *ENJOY* THIS.
 
But there are no macrons.
 
Having macrons is like having an ancient Roman read to you.  It's immersion.  I don't need them on a test.  I don't need them to scan lines.  I don't need them to tell short -is from long -is.  I need them for the new vocab.
 
And I am soooo tired of most new books NOT having macrons (do any of them?).  But my time is limited--what few spare minutes I might be able to give to pleasurable reading of Latin shouldn't be work looking up words.  It should be pleasure.
 
PLEASURE.
 
Or is it too much to hope that one could read a little Latin for pleasure?
 
And, yeah, I know that I should be talking to the publisher.  And I have tried in the past.  Frankly, I'm sure it's a lot of nitpicky editing.  But I know it can be done.  (Maybe they should hire me as an editor?  I could quit teaching...might do me good to quit teaching and be an editor...)  Rick LaFleur wouldn't publish a text without them.  It can be done.  WHY DON'T OTHERS DO THIS?
 
And surely I'm not alone in this?  Don't some of you read out loud?  Don't you want to be able to fix a new word in your head at a glance?  Sheesh....

I'm reading a book called _A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers will Rule the Future_ by Daniel H. Pink.  My former h.s. theatre teacher suggested it and while I'm not too far into it, I'm finding it really good.  Ok, admittedly there's something about the writer's style that bothers me (can't say what--possibly that it's too "light"? who knows), but I'm past that.

It has been discussing how abundance, Asia (cheaper outsourcing), and automation have made it so that knowledge workers (those driven by left-brained activities) no longer can corner the market on salaries; that the future will be governed by those that can offer more than just mastery of left-brained activities: those that are creators and empathizers.  I'm waiting, frankly, for him to talk about how apple has realized already that beauty with functionality can steal the market.  (In other words, I love my iPod and admire iPhones, and I think my son now has an iTouch). 

And what does this have to do with Latin?  Well, next week is National Latin Teacher Recruitment Week--the week where I stand up in front of my classroom, sleep-deprived and stressed, and (foolishly?) try to convince students that teaching is a worthwhile job, and that there is something magical about teaching Latin.

And here I am, on a morning where the house actually is quiet (ok, but it wasn't a couple of hours ago), a morning where I could sleep in (perhaps if I didn't wake with muscle aches and a mind full of to-do's), and here I am writing on my blog.  I was, at least, trying to force myself to accept some relaxation time by reading but it drew me back here.  Why?

There's so many why's here....  why do I love Latin?  I do.  I'm constantly thinking of Latin-related projects.  I don't remember when I thought of a project not related to Latin in some way--even the "I wish I had time for this" projects, like wanting to design and make a mosaic.  I love mosaics.  I cannot even begin to tell you why... or can I?  Maybe it's the same as why I like Latin, something that just came to me while reading this book.

True lovers of Latin are whole-brain users. 

The left side of the brain is the side that likes order, the side that loves all the endings and the secret-code aspect of Latin, the precision, the beauty of the mathematical equation perfectly solved and balanced.  There are people that cannot begin to enjoy textbooks like the Cambridge Latin Course because what they loved about Latin class was changing singulars to plurals, nominatives to accusatives.  There was something very satisfying in the mastering of forms.  These are often the same people/students who love the language, so they say, but hate translating stories.  And perhaps there was a time that I was part of that group.   I remember hating translation day.  Most of the chapters in my high school text involved the back and forth of transformations of the new grammar structure.  Putting it all together was difficult.  You ended up writing stupid sounding sentences but then, that was Latin for you, right? 

Last summer I was at a Vergil workshop for people who were about to teach Vergil AP for the first time.  I watched and listened while most ever single teacher there (or at least the ones who were working in groups and thus I could listen in to what they were doing) treated the beautiful words of Vergl *still* as an exercise of endings and decoding.  I'm not trying to be critical; this is just an observation.

What was I doing?  I was reading WHOLE PASSAGES in the Latin--or at least a complete sentence!--before beginning to make meaning.  My brain was already beginning to make meaning because it had seen the whole picture, it had seen not each and ever tree but had recognized the clusters of trees here and there and saw the beauty of the whole forest.  Things that the other teachers were struggling to see because they were merely looking at endings were flowing in my brain.  Oh, I wasn't perfect.  There were lines here and there I didn't quite get.  And instead of wasting time determined to solve the equation, I moved on because the whole picture was too beautiful to miss.  I read considerably faster than the other students. 

Do I think my Latin is better than theirs?  No.  I bet their command of conditional clauses and their ability to form future imperatives and other such things is better than mine.  But I was enjoying Latin as a LANGUAGE, a real, read-it-left-to-right language.  I credit my ability to do this to Dexter Hoyos and his book _Latin: How to Read it Fluently_.  I still think this is a MUST READ for anyone majoring in Latin.  If I had read it as a freshman in college, I might have a masters or PhD today.  But no matter... I'm doing good things with my little BA.

Right brain thinkers consider context, consider the big picture, have creative solutions, and can empathize.  What I wish this workshop had focused on now are things I understand to be right-brain issues, things I try to teach to my own students--how to teach/learn the right brain stuff. 

How do you get your mind to let go of not knowing what a word means and going for the big picture?  After all, Latin students like that precision.  They like knowing what every little thing means.  There's order in knowing everything, it's a puzzle to be solved.  But it isn't.  It's a LANGUAGE--expressive and beautiful.  There is absolutely no reason at all to keep Latin studies alive if we don't move past the morphology to the beauty of expression and the bigger context.  And we as teachers often wait too long to do this. 

I have heard far too many times in my life that "at some point it will all just start clicking."   Or, when I complained to a prof one time that I didn't know HOW to improve my reading and he just said that I needed to read more.....oh yeah, like that was a solution!

We *can* and must start teaching HOW to see the bigger picture, HOW to get beyond the word for word.  If we don't model reading whole passages to the students, if we don't model getting beyond unknown vocabulary to see the shape of the sentence (and thus figuring out the vocab without having to look it up), we will never move them beyond left-brain thinking.

And here's the thing--if they don't think they can get beyond the morphology to really reading, they won't sign up for AP classes. 

And I'm digressing.  I was going to tie this into National Latin Teacher Recruitment Week stuff.  When we talk to our students, we should point out how fortunate it is that teaching--truly good teaching--is a job that has demanding use of both sides of the brain for so long.  And right now, even if future teachers don't make it a life-long career, but teach to provide a service for this country--a few years service--it truly will prepare them for the kinds of jobs that will be out there, because those jobs are going to need people that can not only handle the data and the details but can provide creative solutions and can empathize with their clients.

I mouthed off in my Latin 2 class this week, muttering something like "you should try to teach this class."  They are actually a fun bunch of kids, but at the end of the day they are swinging from the ceiling.  One piped up and said, OK!  So, with National Latin Exam approaching (March 11th for us) and an odd week with TAKS testing in the middle, I decided they can teach some cultural topics.  Here's the thing:  I told them I didn't want crappy posters with crappy internet graphics cut and pasted together 20 minutes before class.  I pointed out that I rarely make displays (if ever!), but will often grab a book that has some good pictures and walk it around the room.  Or, perhaps, use some slides (YES, I still have slides and I love them).  Occasionally I'll even use PowerPoint.  We'll see what they do.  I told them it has to be an effective mini-lesson where more than half the class should be able to retain the information.  ha.  A little taste of teaching.  This will either be great or a bomb.

Sadly here is what I've found in the last few years of teaching: students aren't as creative as they used to be.  It's too easy to download pictures and make posters for class.  It's too easy to get a cool looking font off of the computer than to do your own lettering.  Even we teachers perhaps aren't modeling enough creativity.  I try....

And I suppose I should stop rambling.  I'm looking forward to this afternoon when I'm working on Aeneid stuff.  I'll just be putting together quia.com review material and grading some quizzes I've almost forgotten about, but I'll be looking at the WHOLE thing--the whole passage, the whole artistry, not just this word and that word.

And I get it now.  For me, it's whole brain stimulation.  Whole brain.

I just posted this to the AP list (below).  I started the thread with this comment yesterday:

***

I have been working hard to get my Latin 3's to work more on seeing phrasing than rushing to look up words, because I know my two AP students rush to look up words before seeing the phrasing. However, not much effort is going into this on their part.

I can see it's more critical than vocab and can lead to better guessing of unknown words from proper context, but I'm not convincing them of that.

Is there any particular exercise that any of you do to promote better chunking, better seeing of phrasing? I'm thinking I should come up with an exercise for midweek to give to both groups (same class time/split level).

I feel it's like magic for me now that I see phrasing so easily, and in word order. I only know of 1 student out of the 3's and AP's (mind you, that's only a total of 9 students) who actively incorporates my reading methodologies and things I've been trying to teach them. This year (but not the last 2) he is the top student. (I think he just finally looked around and decided he was smarter than everyone else and it was time to prove it, ya know...)

I want the rest to get it, esp the two AP students. Because it isn't just about seeing the endings and matching stuff up like a secret code. It's seeing the phrasing and the pictures as they unfold and worrying about the English second, which you can then translate better anyway for having taken time to see the phrasing and the pictures.

> Metaphrasing has been somewhat unsuccessful with poetry (at

> least for me), because in many instances, the sentences are a

> bit long and grammar a bit scattered that students lose track

> of everything nor do they make connections.

Hmmmm.... I have found it helped me out of quite a few jams when I realized my own understanding was going off track. But what I find I can do (most likely because of been working on the whole concept of READING versus DECODING for the last decade both with students and my own personal reading habits) is see whole phrases and clauses or, if need be, eliminate them to see the basic skeleton underneath as well. I gave my APs the Dido wandering as a wounded doe passage to translate on their last test, thinking I had made a big deal out of it and knowing that it is an important passage, but didn't really think about how tricky it is to put into good English. I can *read* it, see the phrases and clauses as they flow over the page, see the pictures painted, understand the nuances of the word order, and love the Latin for the Latin. And even though I know *exactly* what it means, the English is so less graceful. (Hmmm...suddenly I feel the urge to try some creative writing myself with the passage....)

 

>

> I have been trying to get students to rewrite the poetry into

> a more prose word order

And my gut tells me that this is exactly the wrong direction to go. Please, please don't take offense, Keith! This is the sort of thing I probably would have done when I first started teaching in the late 80s. But all that I've read by Dexter Hoyos about reading in word order makes me think that this is just not the way to go. It reinforces that idea that Latin is in mixed up word order.

There's an incredible beauty to the word order and the phrasing. And if we weren't marching at such a horrific clip through these dactylic hexameters, we could slow down long enough to talk about it.

Sometimes one way to deal with what seems odd word order to us is to read it outloud, to think about how a Roman might have emphasized the words as they flowed along in the story. Here's the passage I was talking about (thank you,www.thelatinlibrary.com, I love you):

uritur infelix Dido totaque uagatur

urbe furens, qualis coniecta cerua sagitta,

quam procul incautam nemora inter Cresia fixit

pastor agens telis liquitque uolatile ferrum

nescius: illa fuga siluas saltusque peragrat

Dictaeos; haeret lateri letalis harundo.

Students really botched up the relative clause. No surprise. But think of it from the point of view of the storytelling. First that the shot/spent arrow visually has pierced the doe--from front to back. And then there's the clause describing the doe: far away, unknowing, just wandering among the Cretan woods; pierced (by whom?), then the shepherd hunting with weapons; who himself unwittingly leaves behind the swift/flying shaft/weapon--with that emphasis in the enjambment of not knowing. The story is told BEAUTIFULLY in word order. Makes you wonder what the shepherd was doing, just shooting arrows in the air? Aiming at squirrels up close and not noticing where the arrow ended up? Perhaps the point is that a hunter who knew he shot a doe would have tracked it and finished the job of killing it.

But here's our Dido, shot by Cupid, lethal weapon clinging to her side, so to speak.

There are a couple of things I would want my students to be able to do (which they don't/can't yet), which is to be able to see how to simplify to make sure they have the right *shape* of the thing. Look again at this relative clause:

quam procul incautam nemora inter Cresia fixit

pastor agens telis liquitque uolatile ferrum

nescius:

This can be divided into two parts:

quam procul incautam nemora inter Cresia fixit

pastor agens telis

and

liquitque uolatile ferrum

nescius:

This second part is easier than the first, so let's ignore it. Now to just the first part:

quam procul incautam nemora inter Cresia fixit

pastor agens telis

We know that a relative clause will have a basic shape: subject verb object--right? But can you see it yet? How about now, taking out the prep phrase?

quam procul incautam ... fixit

pastor agens telis

How about now, taking out the adverb?

quam ... incautam ... fixit

pastor agens telis

How about now, taking out the participial phrase modifying pastor?

quam ... incautam ... fixit

pastor

How about now, taking out the adjective, which at least we can now see goes with quam?

quam ... fixit / pastor

And there it is: whom/which the shepherd pierced (with that shot arrow that's already sticking through either side of the doe!)

I don't want to *change* the word order; I want, now, I suppose, to build it back up.

The thing is, I *immediately* see that nemora inter Cresia is a prep phrase. I *immediately* see that agens telis goes with pastor. I don't think word for word when I read; I think chunk for chunk, phrase for phrase, clause for clause.

***
Maybe I should print this for my students....

***
That was the original post.  There was a reply, but the other teacher was talking about possibly getting students to rewrite poetry as prose. That defeats the purpose.  So here are my comments:

Saw the doc today; he's seriously concerned about my sleep deprivation.  No joke; me too.  He kept asking how I could lighten my load.  He kept saying he knew other teachers that didn't work as hard, surely.

Yeah... well....

Would my tests be easier to grade if I made them all scantron? Sure.   Done in 5 minutes in the workroom with the scantron machine.  But is that truly best practices?  

How come living well means not teaching well if you have a full load?

Sure.  I could switch.  Might take some time to change over the tests but I could switch.  But....

How would all multiple choice prepare students for AP?
How would all multiple choice encourage students to reread their stories?
How would I really see true mastery of the material?

Because I can tell you what, just because a person can decline a noun doesn't mean he can read a sentence of Latin.  Just because a person can recognize the right answer doesn't mean he could have come up with that answer on his own.

Backwards design, right?  They say that's the best way to design what you are doing--thinking about where you want to be and design backwards.  OK, my end result is supposed to be, what, a 5 on the AP exam.  So what skills do you need?

• an ability to translate accurately and literally a seen passage of Latin 
• an ability to read and reread a large quantity of Latin, and then reread it again--because the exams requires that you have a serious grasp of all the literature read
• an ability to comprehend an unfamiliar passage of Latin that is not related to Vergil
• an expanded vocabulary keyed towards Vergil
• a solid grammar base that would allow you to differentiate, for instance, tenses and cases quickly and easily
• an ability to write essays (but frankly I let the English department develop those skills; I just fine-tune them for the needs of the exam)

I look at that list and can think of MORE things I need to be doing and not less.  MORE.  For instance, at the beginning of the year I really tried hard to make students use a reading log.  But I never had time to grade them or enter the grades.  I was too busy grading quizzes, tests, or making quizzes and tests for other classes, or quia.com material.  However, if I did have more time and did use those reading logs, for those that don't fake the log (yeah, yeah), it would be really beneficial.  Students won't do something unless they have to even if they know it would be good for them.  So the reading log, I feel, is necessary.  PLUS it would develop the HABIT of REREADING previous stories.

How wonderful it would be if all AP Vergil students, instead of freaking out at the number of lines in the current assignment and diving in, actually took the time to reread the previous selection before starting the current one?  It would certainly develop the bigger picture--plus Vergil seems to repeat specialized vocabulary relatively near each other.    But this habit is almost too late to form if you wait until the students are seniors.  Better to start it sooner.  

The other thing that I do to encourage rereading of stories is including seen passages on the tests.  I (foolishly?) provide a choice of 4 passages, so if they reread at least one or two stories they should be able to find something they are comfortable doing.  I always hope that the knowledge of those selections being on the test encourages students to continue to reread the stories, even if only the night before the test.

And it's this presentation of seen passages that helps me to see whether they can translate or not.  If they mess it up in class when it was homework, fine.  That's ok by me -- if they learn from it.  On the last test I gave to the Latin 3 class I included a passage we had a "pop" quiz on (that I didn't count--it was that bad!) that was over an extended indirect statement.  Two students chose that passage to demonstrate that if nothing else they HAD paid attention. Fine.  Great even.  They gave me the details they hadn't given me before, the kind of details and literal precision that AP is after.  

SO THAT'S ALL GOOD.  But if I could find a way to keep up with the reading log, that would be better.

The ability to read a sight passage and answer questions... well, I guess I could turn that into multiple choice/objective.  Currently I have short answer -- both Latin and English -- to make sure students truly are understanding the Latin and not just guessing randomly.  From the style of question I can see whether they get concepts of case or even subject/verb agreement, not to mention general comprehension.  On my last Latin one class I could easily tell who had general comprehension because they laughed at the story.  (I had written a great one, I admit.  Luck, most assuredly!)   Admittedly the sight passage will be multiple choice on the AP test, but I feel that I can determine a lot about how a student is doing by the kinds of answers the student writes down.  Did they get the write word for a Latin answer but just not put it in the right case?  Did they not understand the question altogether, or did they understand the question but not the passage?  All sorts of things. 

But I guess if something had to go, I could rewrite the tests to have multiple choice for those sections... that would save some time in grading.

As for developing an expanded vocabulary geared towards Vergil, well, there's still LOTS of room to go here.  I'm only beginning to ponder the situation.  The more Vergil I read with the AP girls this year, the more I realize that CLC really has LOTS of Vergil vocab built in.  Some scene we were reading in Latin 1--LATIN 1--had some words that were just in the Vergil we're read recently, words that the girls stumbled on.  

I'm starting in Latin 3 (but have been inconsistent--and this will all need redoing on quizzes next year) to have a section on the vocab quizzes for old vocab they should still know.  It's strictly a matching section, and I really only began this when we began Unit 4.  Perhaps a little late to be doing this.  Even the Latin 2's have noticed that they aren't retaining vocab.  So this is something that perhaps I need to start including on their vocab quizzes.  The question in my mind's eye is usually WHICH WORDS?

I have toyed with words that show up in the current story.  But would it be more efficient (surely it would?) to just simply state that there will be matching vocab that will pull from X stage and Y stage?  Yes, most likely.   I do have a master vocab list for Unit 1 and Unit 2, though I haven't handed them out in recent years.  But perhaps these would be good lists to give to Latin 2 and 3 students at the beginning of the year?  And I wish I had a list for Unit 3, one done like *I* would do it--with macrons and all.  (Hmmm.... I suppose this could always be a standby project for my aide when I don't have her typing up Vergil vocab....).   Ideally what I would do is mark all the vocabulary that is on the Vergil high frequency list and target those words, whether they showed up in the current reading or not.  And if I pulled on two stages, I could do one from a more recent stage for reinforcement and one from an old stage for review.  Yes?  Not a bad idea.

(Of course, I'm always full of good ideas that I can hardly find time to put into practice.  And this note was about how to cut back on what I do so I can get more sleep and find time for exercise before I literally kill myself from stress.)

(And now I'm thinking I have the topic for a paper for presentation next year regarding vocabulary acquisition, which is always a hot topic for conversations among Latin teachers.)

Grammar.  That's where I'm falling down, I think.  I don't do enough hardcore drill and kill.  I focus a lot on being able to see the phrasing and that seeing the phrasing is far more important than knowing all the words.  Clearly students don't believe me.   One girl, bless her because she tries hard but gets easily discouraged, had written vocab all over a sheet of the Latin story (printed out for marking phrasing with notes for vocab on the side), demonstrating that she had looked up ever single damn word.  She did.  She had worked HARD.  She was virtually in tears when she (as well as most everyone else) had bombed the little pop quiz that focused on the indirect statement because she couldn't make heads or tails of it.  She sees the trees but not the forest. Lots and lots of tall, scary trees.  And I do have a grammar section (multiple choice) on my standard tests at all levels; I have noticed that this is the section where people are dropping the ball, especially on things they really shouldn't be blowing.  I no longer drill the neverending noun song with the Latin 3's.  If they don't know their noun endings then they know what to do.  They have the link to the song, there are drills, etc.  They can practice on their own. 

I have conjugating and declining drills online.  I don't require declining and conjugating for homework because, honestly, WHEN would I have time to grade them?  But this is a problem I think I have to figure out.  I think that Latin 3--that stepping stone to AP Latin--must be where we refine all knowledge of declining and conjugating and such.  I tried to teach the Latin 3's (only 7 of them) how to do a synposis earlier this year but finally gave up because only 2 seemed to get it and in a split level class I started to think that it wasn't the best use of my time. But that was a cop-out.

I'm thinking that next year--and I have to find a way (find some more time?  ahahahahhaha) to grade these THE WHOLE YEAR--all vocab items must be declined, conjugated, or put in a synopsis (where applicable).  Little details keep slipping by the AP girls--and that's my fault for not having reinforced the detail work in the past.  But they've been in split-level Latin for 3 of four years.  All three with me, at least.  

So, not a place to cut, but one to expand.  One to find MORE time for.  

I know one thing that eats up a bunch of my time is the creation of the quia.com materials.  But I think they are critical for mastery in some cases, can act as a private tutor for students, is a resource that's available 24/7/365, and once made is still there.

I confess that there are times... times when I worry about ALL THE TIME I've invested in quia.com and what will eventually happen to it if something happens to it.  I've come to rely on it entirely too much in my teaching and my review of material for students.  It's probably why I have as many students move from level 1 to level 2 Latin.  We'll see how many Latin 2 go to Latin 3 next year.  And God Almighty what will I do next year?

They'll have to have a cut off.  3 Latin 1s, 2 Latin 2s, 1 Latin 3 split with AP again.  I doubt that they will be getting another Latin teacher, or if they do, will it be one I can convince to do things my way?   What levels to give?  Lower levels while I develop upper?  Give up upper and relax, so to speak, with lower?

And what about my doc?  HOW can I do less than I do now?  What's the result?  Will students learn the Latin if I didn't do what I do?  Wouldn't more fail?  Wouldn't my classes be smaller? 

I don't know how to not do what I do.  I can only think of more to do.  More that needs tweaking.  Today is an inservice day and I had no  one to meet with for vertical teaming this morning.  This, I suppose, is my vertical teaming.  With personal commentary.  Probably TMI. 

If I gave up anything it would be doing JCL.

In a heartbeat.

Ok, I just had a little rant on Latinteach. I"ll probably pay for it later but it really got me.  The original post went like this:

***
Low Level: memorizing the role of Hamlet, or the text of any other lead
actor in a serious play; memorizing - yes- irregular verbs, principal parts,
etc.; the Greek gods, the basic stories of mythology; Bible verses; a
Rhapsode memorizing the epic; etc.
High Level: synthesis - writing a poem

I really have no regard at all for Bloom's taxonomy. When I first saw it, I
showed it to a friend, a graduate of Yale who is a filmmaker. "Whose
criteria are these?!?" he shrieked in horror. I trust it is little known
outside of USA, and probably little known outside California. I do
understand, from a friend who studied with Bloom, that she was very
personable.
***

Here's my reply (which hasn't been posted yet):

Yes, I'll grant you, but that's not what Bloom was talking about.  And I think you know that.
 
How many people have students who can memorize vocab for a quiz?  Can decline puella?  But can't put it together to translate?
 
Memorizing lines of Shakespeare and ACTING THEM WELL/INTERPRETTING THEM are two different things.  Plenty of people our age (middle age) memorized the preamble to the constitution because of the School House Rock song, and even though plenty of kids can sing it, how many of them can take it apart and truly understand it or explain the grammar of it?
 
What people hate are educational theories because they think they are a waste of time.  But if they were a waste of time and if they have no bearing on why students who can memorize vocab and sing back the Endless Noun Ending song, what is your explanation for why little Johnny can't make heads or tales of a Latin sentence?
***

You know, you can find ANYTHING wrong with ANYTHING if you look hard enough.  Is memorizing Shakespeare difficult?  It can be, if the language is unfamiliar.  But I certainly have strands of Shakespeare floating through my head, mainly from Hamlet, that have lasted all these years. I also have tons of commercials and lyrics and other nonsense.  All memorized.   I'm sure at one time I could recited the periodic table.  And if you told me I had to memorize a passage of Greek for tomorrow I could do it.  But don't ask me to UNDERSTAND it.  I know some Greek Christmas carols that I've memorized that I couldn't tell you exactly what they mean.

But what Bloom was saying is that memorizing straight facts is easiest.  And if you think about what Latin teachers have been WHINING about their students for generation after generation is mainly along the lines of why can't these kids take what they know and translate?  They've got the vocab, they know their endings, why can't they take the time to apply everything and create MEANING?

Because it is a different kind of thinking.  All education stuff isn't crap.  A lot of it isn't in fact, it is just usually poorly presented in classes because it is't applied to anything.  And in our methods classes everything is crammed in to one semester when some of the stuff could be a class on its own.  There are theories and philosophies out there that I haven't begun to explore because I don't have the time--Krashen, Rassias, others who write about language acquisition.

To say, for instance, esp for a modern language, that immersion is the way to go is too general.  How is it supported?  What order is material presented?  How does it build upon what the learner has been exposed to?  Or is it sink or swim?

I know people who think immersion is utter crap.  I say that probably their teacher was utter crap and didn't know what they were doing.

I think that if you have students who can memorize vocabulary and can decline a noun who are still failing major concepts and can't translate that there's probably something your missing.  And, yes, some kids automatically do higher level thinking and can apply all the rules and generate, after treating Latin like a secret code, something close to a literate translation, albeit strained.  Translating Latin shouldn't be like having constipation.  It shouldn't be work.  (You know, I could continue with this metaphor but nothing good will come of it.)

I've been utterly exhausted lately, exhausted beyond my means and over the edge and looking at crazyville.  Too much to do both for classes and for home and other stuff.  And the one thing I keep thinking during my frustration is that I wish I had more time to devote to THINKING about the problems my Latin 2's are having as well as ADDRESSING them.  Because when they want to, they can all ace a vocab quiz (even one of mine in context) and they can decline the required noun or conjugate the required verb.  But they aren't applying the information when they need to and I need to figure out why.  What can I do to help build these skills?  It's not about whether they are lazy, though some are, or they spend too much time online, though some do, or even what previous teachers did or did not do to build skills that these kids should have.

They don't have them.

It would be like me looking to blame vaccinations or computer use or whatever for why my younger son has pervasive developmental delays.  IT DOESN'T MATTER WHY SKILLS ARE LACKING.  We are the teachers.  We need to address what's lacking so that all students can move on.

And until something better than Blooms can help me think about what's missing, I'm going to support understanding and using Blooms.  If you think it's utter crap, fine.  But don't expect you can just weed out your Latin  classes so that you only get the good kids.  Real life isn't like that.  ANd if you do weed out your classes, they will be small classes.  Your AP won't make.  You'll have to teach other subjects.  And then one day the school board will decide that Latin is unnecessary and being treated as an elitist subject anyway.  Then you'll be looking for a job.

If you don't like students as much as Latin if not, maybe, a little more even, this isn't the job for you.  Don't waste your time with student teaching.  Go look at editing positions or something.  Computer programming.  Marketing.  Good teaching isn't easy.  This isn't a fallback position if you don't have what it takes to finish your PhD.

I better end my rant there.  I'm sorry if I offended people.  I don't know why the comment on Blooms taxonomy so pissed me off.  Then again I don't believe anyone on Latinteach even made a comment about my suggestions to the problems of group work that teacher was having.  Is it because, quite honestly, the grammar teacher really only wanted a certain type of answer?  Was that it?  And mine wasn't that kind of answer?  They wanted to hear how someone else parsed information? You know, whatever.  I have a lot of work to do, time to go do it and stop my ranting.

This was in response to a note on Latinteach.  A teacher was discussing what to do when group translating (grammar/translation class set-up) and a kid totally botches a sentence creating a real howler and such.  Most people were suggesting some form of parsing.  this is what I suggested.

***
This thread has interested me, in great measure because I don't think the heart of the problem has been identified. (Then again, I haven't had much sleep in weeks so who knows what I'm rambling on about.)

I've taught middle school (inner city) and at that time read a lot about teaching this age group.

I hope everyone here is familiar with Bloom's Taxonomy. Some of you may hate it because it's been shoved down your throat, but it really does help to understand where are students go wrong.

Memorizing declension and conjugation endings is just simple rote memory. It is a low-level skill. Just simple knowledge. Simple recall. However, when we are translating, we are using high level skills of synthesis and analysis. So we may have a student who can decline a noun just fine, or go from singular to plural, nominative to accusative, but can't make a thing out of an actual sentence of Latin. I have heard Latin teachers say to students that, gosh, if they know their endings they *should* be able to figure out the sentence. Just *apply* the endings.

But it's not that simple. The brain at that age does not function at those higher levels naturally. Physical and mental development varies from person to person at that age, and thus is a tricky age to teach. Anyone who has taught Latin 1 to seniors knows that they grasp details and how things go together far more quickly than freshmen.

Parsing, sure, can be done, but I find that it interferes with the flow of reading. I try to teach my students some different techniques to build reading skills.

My most used item in my bag of tricks is metaphrasing. A basic metaphrasing place-holding sentence is "someone verbed something to someone." Of course, sentences will vary and this doesn't cover genitives, for instance, or prepositional phrases, but it does provide a good place to start and allows one to analyze the sentence as it develops without resorting to "hunt the verb."

Since you teach from LFA, let me grab a copy and pull a random sentence from it to apply. Ok. How about this:

p 112. Graeci et Troiani ad Troiam pugnaverunt.

So, I would treat this sentence this way if we were metaphrasing the whole sentence.

Graeci: The Greeks verbed something.
Graeci et: The Greeks and someone (parallel construction) verbsed something.
Graeci et Troiani: The Greeks and Trojans verbed something.
Graeci et Troiani ad: The Greeks and Trojans verbed something to something (we expect an acc. with AD).
Graeci et Troiani ad Troiam: The Greeks and Trojans verbed something to Troy.
Graeci et Troiani ad Troiam pugnaverunt. The Greeks and Trojans fought AT Troy (making an adjustment to AD to complete the proper structure of the sentence).

Ok. Simple enough. Let's look at another sentence that doesn't start with a nominative.

Barbaris praemium novum donabimus.

Barbaris: Someone verbed something to/for the barbarians. (would probably need a preposition to be ablative, so we can rule that out)
Barbaris praemium: The reward verbed something to/for the barbarians OR Someone verbed the reward to/for the barbarians. (Discussion of which one is more likely, and the knowledge that we have to hold both possibilities, until we have something tell us for sure.)
Barbaris praemium novum: The new reward verbed something to/for the barbarians (seems more unlikely) OR Someone verbed a new reward to/for the barbarians.
Barbaris praemium novum donabimus. AH! WE WILL GIVE a new reward to/for the barbarians.

The joy of metaphrasing is you are providing students a framework to hold information on, one that works with English word order, without needing to treat the Latin like an impossible jigsaw puzzle.

I often use metaphrasing for warm-ups. I just throw up a list of words in different cases and they have to put the English meaning into the right slot in the metaphrasing sentence.

Of course, we discuss cases and such too. I don't want you to think we don't. But grammatical cases and names of functions often do not connect with MEANING. We need to help build skills that stretch between Bloom's knowledge skills to the higher analytical skills.

Here's another sentence where understanding metaphrasing and Latin phrasing will help. I like to teach the importance in seeing what ET connects.

Barbari equum et castra deserta Graecorum viderunt.

Barbari: The barbarians verbed something.
Barbari equum: The barbarians verbed the horse.
Barbari equum et : The barbarians verbed the horse and something (parallel construction therefore we EXPECT an accusative).
Barbari equum et castra: The barbarians verbed the horse and the camp
Barbari equum et castra deserta: The barbarians verbed the horse and the deserted camp
Barbari equum et castra deserta Graecorum: The barbarians verbed the horse and the deserted camp of the Greeks
Barbari equum et castra deserta Graecorum viderunt: The barbarians saw the horse and the deserted Greek camp.

Using a reading card (with a notch cut out of the left corner, thus the right side of the card covers up the rest of the sentence) keeps students from skipping around and hunting the verb or stringing together just the words they know.

Reading in word order cures a lot of ills with bad translations. I hope that helps.

Every now and then a Latin program will be under the threat of a budget cut.    I was taken to task recently for implying that our teaching jobs are usually untouched by the economy.  Teaching is a safer job than high tech at present and probably other things (car industry?), but yeah our jobs come under theat.

HELLO-- we teach an ELECTIVE.  You know, from elego, elegere, elegi electus.  To pick, choose.    Just because we think what we teach is important or even critical and certainly darn useful in a multitude of ways doesn't give us a permanent seat at the table.

To paraphrase Ovid, if you want to be valued, be valuable!

Programs don't grow just because you tell people that Latin is good for them.  Programs don't grow because you can show on paper that Latin produces higher SAT verbal scores.

It's marketing and salesmanship.

Can you SELL your product?  Once sold, do customers keep coming back for more?  Do you make sure as many of your customers as possible can get the most out of your product?

Or do you sit there with a box full of your product, unopened, because you can't sell it or your customers don't understand how to get the most out of your product?

If you think I'm simplifying the matter, I think you're wrong.  Loving Latin will never be enough to be a good teacher.  It's not a bad place to start, but if you can't sell it/teach it, it won't matter.

I gave Latin 2 students back their tests today.  Some A's and B's; too many C's and F's (more than usual).  It's that time of year; everyone's burned out and lazy.  But I told them that even with this knowledge, when I saw that virtually everyone missed a certain set of questions, my first thought was whether *I* had screwed up.  (Actually, I had coded two of them wrong!)  The NEXT thought wasn't "lazy students" or "not my best crop of students" but HOW can I get them to do this type of question better?  (It was a grammar ID section following a sight passage.)  So we went through these 10 particular questions and we talked about different ways to understand/see the right answer.

I am constantly thinking about HOW can I help struggler X & Y understand the material.   That is, whether I mean to or not, my teaching is student centered.  DOCEO takes two accusatives, you know.  I'm constantly  repackaging Latin, creating clearer instructions, better applications, etc etc.

Baby, I can sell it!

And because of that, students notice and parents notice.

I knocked myself out last night, getting very little sleep, determined to finish grading the Latin 2 tests.  Part is multiple choice, part short-answer Latin and English questions, and part a short translation (of a seen passage).  A kid said the magic phrase today... wish I could say which one it was now but I don't remember.  But he said he REALLY liked how I graded tests because the feedback actually MEANT something.   Other classes, he said, merely used scantrons.  The teachers didn't care about what you put, only whether it was right or wrong.

Does this mean I'm working myself to death?  Perhaps.  But part of what I'm going through these first few years at Dripping is about the struggles in building a program and having it grow so quickly.

I can't tell you how many parents have told in just the last few weeks HOW  VERY GLAD they are that their child has me as a teacher (or HAD me as a teacher!). 

Do I think I've got job security?  Yeah, I suppose arrogantly I think I do.    But it's not because I teach something so important like Latin.  It's because I make myself VALUABLE as a teacher.

So the question I'm asking you is, have you made yourself truly valuable?  Or do you just have a job?

Here's the letter from AP with the link to the survey below.  I haven't done mine yet; I'm contemplating possibilities. (more comments below the letter)

***
Dear AP Latin Teacher:

We are writing to request your ideas as we work to revise the AP Latin program in the coming years.

Last spring, we announced that AP Latin Literature, along with three other AP courses, will be discontinued following the May 2009 exam. The College Board remains committed to supporting college-level world language studies in secondary schools. Because more secondary schools offer the AP Latin: Vergil program, we decided to maintain the AP Latin: Vergil program for 2009-10. As a not-for-profit organization, we will continue to bear a considerable financial loss annually to provide schools with AP world language offerings and to keep student exam fees reasonable. Some educators have suggested that if the College Board can only fund one AP Latin Exam, the solution should be to keep two different curricula in place, alternating the exam content every other year. This solution does not, however, actually address the funding issue, since maintaining two separate AP Latin Exams would require two separate budgets and processes for test form assembly, item development, college comparability studies, reliability studies, equating plans, and other processes that are crucial to delivery of reliable, high-stakes examinations.

Others have suggested calling two years of curriculum "AP Latin," so that students would have incentive to choose Latin over other languages, even though the exam would only be offered at the end of the final year of study. But if we were to allow multiple courses that prepare students for eventual success on an AP Latin Exam to be called "AP Latin," teachers of other languages (German, French, etc.) would want to label multiple years of their course work similarly. Attempting to acquire the most AP designations as possible on a transcript is not something we should support. Accordingly, the "AP" designation will be reserved for the capstone course in the sequence that culminates in the AP Exam.

Having decided to keep the AP Latin: Vergil Exam as the sole AP Latin Exam, it became important to us to understand the extent to which the course should be modified over time to represent the best possible capstone AP Latin experience. We have just completed a survey of college professors at dozens of the nation's top classics departments, and this is the consensus that emerged:

	College faculty confirmed that we should keep Vergil at the core of the capstone AP Latin course, but that we should reduce the amount of time on Vergil to approximately 40 percent of the current reading list, so that the capstone course could be a prose and poetry course with selections from Catullus, Cicero, and/or Caesar filling the remainder of the reading list.
	College faculty expressed a strong desire for this course to be offered in the twelfth-grade year, so that students would persist in their course of Latin study through their final year of high school, entering college with the knowledge and skills still fresh from their AP course. (However, choices regarding the grade level in which AP Latin should be offered will remain within the jurisdiction of the secondary school.)
	100 percent of college faculty indicated that their institutions would provide credit and placement to AP Latin students who succeeded on a multiauthor, prose and poetry AP Latin Exam.

The AP Latin Development Committee will meet in late March 2009 to decide the timeline for modifying AP Latin: Vergil to include other authors beyond Vergil. To make this decision, the AP Latin Development Committee would appreciate guidance from AP teachers. Assuming that the new AP Latin course and exam will reduce the amount of time on Vergil and require works by other prose and poetry authors, when should the new course first be offered? In other words, how much time will AP teachers want to prepare for offering the new course, and how much professional development are they likely to need? How much time would AP Latin teachers need to acquire course textbooks and materials?

The AP Latin Development Committee will review the results of this survey of AP Latin teachers in late March, and will identify any other information necessary to making decisions about changes to the AP Latin program. We will provide AP Latin teachers with an update in May 2009 about the Development Committee's exploratory work, and will remind teachers that no changes will be made to AP Latin: Vergil for the 2009-10 academic year.

Accordingly, please fill out a brief survey, which we estimate will take about 10 minutes to complete. Your responses will be kept anonymous.

Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey and thereby guide the future of the AP Latin program.

The Advanced Placement Program

***

Decisions are made by those who show up.  Show up.

And then, before you whine about what we canNOT get that we want, think about the people who have lost their jobs to the recession.  Consider the Latin Lit test nothing more than a layoff.  At least Vergil hasn't gotten a pink slip.

No job is sacred.  While we may be slaves to our jobs,we are LUCKY to be able to teach something we LOVE. 

And if we don't want pink slips, we need to be creatively rethinking how our program is structured.  Can we do something else for year 5 that's college credit in conjunction with a local university? 

Oh here's a weird idea.  You know, often we think of pairing up our upper level classes.  What if there's a way to write up a class for say Plautus--for Roman comedies--where the advance Latin 5's are reading the original but kids who really don't want to continue Latin (barely scraped by the 1st two years) but who like the cultural civ stuff do research in English on the time period and the stuff in English.  The two groups come together to plan performances.  The Latin 5 students do the acting/scenes in Latin; the civ/culture students do sets, costumes, whatever.

What if you did Cicero like that?  Latin 5's do the speeches; culture students make costumes, are in charge of tech stuff (recording?), historical accuracy of props and such. 

Really, the only things that holds us back from such classes are 1) time to execute the class well, 2) time to think creatively to come up with such a class, and 3) convincing administration to allow a crossbreed beast like that.  Then again, isn't that a way to make classes more democratic in a way?  Broaden exposure of higher level topics to a wider audience, even if they are gaining information via different mediums?

well, I'm going to regret having spent time here again instead of grading.  Time to get back into it.  I thought i was almost done until I got to the number of tests that were turned in/taken late. eheu. 

This morning I participated in an online meeting for developing the framework for the new certification test for Latin.  When the ExCET was put in place in 1987 it was supposed to have an oral Latin component.  A framework for an oral examination was developed but never put in place for fear that it would be the hurdle that would keep otherwise qualified Latin teachers out of teaching.  I have always been a loud, vocal proponent for the oral examination framework being used.  I'm usually shouted down.  

There was a time, back before the mold in the house and the gang fights at Porter and the move to teaching at Dripping and my son's minor emotional problems turning major, that I thought about and wrote about and spoke about changes that need to be made in teacher preparation.  I'm trying to think why now...why was I so driven?  I guess because I had watched several middle school Latin programs close in the Austin area within a few years of each other.  One school in particular that actually managed to stay open went through several teachers before they found someone stable to keep the program going.  One teacher was new, green.  Nice guy and probably knew his Latin, but had no experience with CLC and probably wasn't truly teacher material.  And I think people saw and knew this during his student teaching.  The next teacher just wasn't suited to middle schoolers and left under, well, unfortunate circumstances.  What both of these people had in common was a love of Latin, but not a love of teaching or students. 

Teaching is a hard job, one of the most difficult and challenging jobs around.  You have to want this.  It isn't about how much you love Latin.  It's about how much you love teaching Latin.

Anyway, I suppose it was after those incidents that I started to seriously consider teacher training issues.  Discussions ensued at CAMWS, TCA, ACL and other places...wherever teacher training was discussed.  We discussed all the problems that many had experienced with their own college Latin classes/curriculum.  We discussed what prevents colleges from teaching the courses future teachers need most. 

Numbers, of course always plays a key roll.  Even in large classics departments, like UT, only a couple of students a year are declared as future teachers.  You can't provide courses for just two people.  You can't change curriculum for so few.  And I once wrote proposals for how someone who declares to want to teach could help themselves and how their professors could help, even if the choice of authors provided in a given semester couldn't be changed.    But I didn't mean to go into that now.

This was supposed to be about oral Latin, especially since it looks like we may well be getting an oral component now to the new certification test.  Finally.  I never thought I'd see the day.

So, what do you do if you are, for instance, changing career and getting certified and haven't been exposed to oral Latin of any sort in a long time?  Or, what do you do to train yourself?  Or, how would I conduct an oral Latin workshop?

I have my pronunciation worksheets and such that I do at the beginning of the year.  Are they a good thing?  Are they just the thing that gets my students a stage/chapter behind everyone else's? 

But if I were to do a workshop...  (this is all just thinking outloud, seemingly useless since I know it will probably be some time before I could ever do such a thing)...  or if I were to advise someone who needs to work on their oral Latin skills, what would I do?  What would I tell them?

Start with truly working to understand how to divide and accent a word if you don't have someone who can model the Latin for you.  Of course there are various online pronunciation guides and audio files now, with Wheelocks being at the top of the list as far as quality. 

But after that, it's practice.  Practice doing everything out loud.  Get a Latin 1 book, esp one with a lot of stories like CLC or Lingua Latina, and read outloud.  All the time. 

I suppose, though, that just reading even English outloud has to be a comfortable thing for a person.  And I suppose I'm just rambling aimlessly now, having lost my purpose and train of thought while my mind is racing with thoughts of how much I have to grade or how much quia there is to do, etc etc. 

Anyway.  I suppose I'm just glad that we are going to see changes in the certification test.  I just want to be thinking and ready for those who are going to want help in mastering their oral Latin for the section on that. 

I'm updating NLTRW materials, lots of them, a lot more than I remember.  Man, I used to be prolific with this stuff.  Most of it's pretty good material to use.  Some of it I had already forgotten that I had written.  I suppose that reflects the level of stress in my life, but let's not go there.

I've updated most everything at www.promotelatin.org/nltrw.htm.  Everything except what will become the scrapbook page.  I've decided to cut myself some slack and move onto other things.  But first I'm testing links to various flyers and such.

Some items didn't need updating like "Some Top Reasons to Teach Latin at the Pre-Collegiate Level" http://www.promotelatin.org/TopReasons2004.pdf and "Secondary Considerations: PhDs on Teaching at the Secondary Level":   http://www.promotelatin.org/PhDtestimonials.pdf.  Both are handy.

I've updated "So You Want to Be a Latin Teacher?" http://www.promotelatin.org/futureteacher2009.pdf.  This is a handy little flyer with  information on pedagogy and such that isn't gathered anywhere else.  It now includes the gem _When Dead Tongues Speak_. 

I had forgotten that I had linked "Principles of Learning in a Middle School Classroom" http://www.promotelatin.org/PrinciplesOfLearningInTheMSLatinClassroom.pdf.  I wrote that in reaction to this whiny article that appeared in CJ (Classical Journal) which complained that middle school teachers do too much fluff--too much games and nonsense.  I wrote it because I was so tired of defending that what I did was important at the middle school level, not trivial.  That I was a legitimate Latin teacher even if I weren't teaching Cicero.    But now I teach high school and often miss middle school.  I've hardly had time to breathe let alone ponder the importance of teaching at all levels.  Anyway.  It's not a bad article about serious teaching at the middle school level.

The last thing I've read is T"each Prep: New Ideas, New Approach" at http://www.promotelatin.org/TeacherPrepNewIdeasNewApproach.pdf.  When I wrote it, I really thought I'd get more of a reaction out of it.  But I didn't.  Perhaps I lost my fire after that and began to wonder whether it was worth all the effort.  Or maybe I'm just waiting for someone to listen.  I suppose this is why I still go to CAMWS conferences and such... because one day someone will listen.  Until then we'll be turning out teachers who still aren't quite ready for what's ahead of them.  And many of them will be like me, leave after one year.  And how many will come back after a dozen years like I did? 

There have been days--not many lately--when I've thought I had a vision for how to solve problems.  Then there have been other days when I was sure I was arrogant and totally full of it.  Perhaps I lost my fire that last year at Porter MS, when the principal shot me down right and left, was pissed at my regional and national connections, etc.  There was the constant reminded that it didn't matter what I did outside of school, it was what I did within the school that mattered.  Did I do double morning duties since I wasn't around in the afternoons because I was part-time?  Did I...  oh nevermind.  I shouldn't go there.  Let's just say I was reminded then that I was just a middle school teacher.  And then I was without a job or school, and then with a full program 30 miles away with not time left for vision and creativity.

Anyway.  I have to put NLTRW aside for a while and get some other work done.  Lately my most creative thinking has been on the smaller classroom problems of how to make Latin 2 and Latin 3 better so students won't struggle as much in Latin 4.  Just focusing on the smaller picture, not the big picture.  But the big picture is so important, because if something happens and I have to leave teaching for personal reasons (NOT that I have any intention of doing so in the near future, but I'm also more aware of the fragility of the human condition), I really want to believe that someone will be able to take over my program and not kill it or leave it wounded and slowly dying. 

<sigh>

What's NLTRW?  National Latin Teacher Recruitment Week.  Oddly enough, it was my brainchild and with the able leadership and guidance of Tom Sienkewicz of Monmouth College and Ken Kitchell of U Mass at Amherst it came into being several years back. 

I used to be all over this.  When I taught middle school I had enough free time to think and create and be of a service to my classics community.  But now... well, they wanted revised materials LAST week.  hahahaha.  I was still writing exams.  Oh yeah... still need to grade the essay from the APs.  But I digress.

Anyway, it's time to revise materials and they are getting boring and old.  Time for something refreshing and uplifting.  Something that makes you think that doing your own little part can and will make a difference.  Yes, we can.

Hmmm....  maybe "Yes, we can"  Isn't a bad idea.  Obama's acceptance speech was brilliant and so full of classical structure and allusions that he was spoken of being a modern Cicero.

So, maybe that's what we need.  Something that in the space of an advert, a mere soundbite, can be as inspiring as a great orator taking the stage. 

I have open in another screen on my laptop right now one of the cards I designed a few years back for NLTRW--a photo from Matt Webb's class.  See it here:  http://www.cafepress.com/animaaltera.207070231

The text reads: 

Raise your hand if you are up to the challenge, the thrill, and the excitement of teaching. Join us for National Latin Teacher Recruitment Week, the first full week in March. For more information go to www.promotelatin.org/nltrw.htm.

But one of the dirty secrets of teaching Latin is that it is really more important that your good with students and love being around them than being excellent at Latin.  These ads are to be read by the teachers and professors with the hope that they will celebrate National Latin Teacher Recruitment Week, but often even those people don't know what it takes to be a good teacher.

I was smart, an A student, but not brilliant.  I can recognize brilliance, even know how to feed it, but I'm not brilliant.  I am, however, a good teacher in great measure because I constantly think about how I can teach something so that more people get it.  The more people I can reach, the more people will stay in my program and go on to advanced levels of the language.

I know people who were brilliant at Latin and anything they put their hands to... people who really wouldn't be suited for teaching because they have no patience for those who can't keep up with them.

And yet with that said, I know of teachers who have said they won't do anything for NLTRW because they just don't have any students good enough to become teachers or good enough.  These are teachers who, in general, never try to understand their students to understand what makes them tick, what goes on in their world, etc.

You know who I think might make a good teacher?  ANYONE.  Anyone who can take the next person for just who he/she is and can then get that same person excited about whatever it is that is being taught.  Can you find what they are interested in and relate what you are teaching to that?

For instance, I have a student who is Jewish.  Ok, I have two now, but I'm thinking of one who is in Latin 2.  I'm constantly on the lookout for archaeological articles about ancient Jerusalem, etc.  And how cool was that find of gold coins the other day in Israel?  I sent a link about it to the girl and she just replied that she was thrilled because her rabbi was talking about it yesterday.

I work myself to death.  I am insane, bloody insane and I know it.  The hours seem to go into building quia.com materials (this year for Latin 3 and 4/AP) but I am told year after year how helpful that material is.... 

And I want to recruit students to be teachers.  I want to plant that seed in their minds.   I want to convince them that this is a good job, a meaningful job, but it's such an insane job.  Sleep deprivation, no time for exercise or good health...ok, part of that is due to family issues and not entirely school related. 

How can I explain that to me teaching is like serving my country?  Is that crazy?  God knows I am a big fan of The West Wing and such a sucker for those lines like "decisions are made by those who show up" and (something like) "never doubt that a small dedicated group of people can effect great changes" (that's not quite it).  In my odder, more sleep deprived moments I want to stand up and say, "I serve at the pleasure of the President" (or Superintendent?).  It's a call of duty, it's an act of devotion.

Hmmmm.... it's an act of service.  Maybe I can find some inspiration from material on Obama's sight regarding plans for service?

Would that be out of place?  I wonder. 

(And I look around the room thinking that all these presents need bows, etc, and I need to be folding laundry and not thinking about NLTRW...)

I was just thinking how I haven't presented at ANY conference lately.  I've hardly had time to even THINK about anything that I do that would be worth presenting on. 

This hasn't been an ideal year, but once again I was tickled pink when I had my reading circle review day to hear almost everyone read really well.  I went home and asked my own son to read, who's taking Latin at another school.  Wasn't the same.  And I know I'm a little more neurotic about this than others, but really the main thing that I do that's developed such good readers is

1) reading at a normal pace--not slowed down--which provides the expectation that they can too.
2) choral reading with most stories, if time.
3) very occasional individual reading

If I could do everything I wanted, I would have students doing oral recitations phoned in like I used to at the middle school I taught at.

Maybe what I need to be thinking about more is not what goes well in Latin 1, but what does NOT after Latin 1 and how to remedy it.  I feel like I'm doing a better job with Latin 2 this year, but not solid.  I always feel like you have to be actively not trying to fail Latin 1, but I know it gets so much more confusing in Latin 2.

Well, the first place it gets confusing is with relative pronouns.  Or any kind of pronoun.  Once I can get them to see that the ENDINGS are virtually the same EXCEPT genitives and datives... well....nevermind.

Maybe not nevermind.  Because the kids who get this quickly can handle most anything coming up--all those participial phrases, etc.

Maybe if I actually assigned homework.

Maybe if I made a brilliant quia exercise that helped make this clear.

Maybe just declining pairs of words will do it.

Maybe maybe maybe.

Maybe this headache will go away.