Magister Coke is all around in big trouble!
Besides shirking my duties on this website, I have been extremely neglectful concerning graduate school. I got an email a few days ago from Bryn Mawr's bow-tied Godfather, Darby Scott, scolding me for not responding to any emails from professors regarding my UNFINISHED THESIS. I know, I know, I am BAAAAD. Sed quid dicam? I mean seriously, in my first year of teaching, when will I have time for writing? When I am not planning lessons, I am sleeping and maybe even eating. Nonetheless, I haven't emailed him back, which is definitely in bad form.
On a lighter note, I have written two songs to help my students with the cases. I'm sure that this will help all of you Latin tutors out there. Maybe I should put out an mp3 with the songs recorded.
The first song is from the Adam's Family theme song:
They're crazy and they're KOOKy
they're marvelous and spooky
it won't be long 'till you see
the case as family!
nominative (click click)
the genitive (click click)
dative and accusative, the ablative (click click)
The second song takes its melody from The Hall of the Mountain King by Grieg: "Singular is US A UM, I AE I, O AE O..." and so forth. It gets complicated with the plurals, so you'll have to wait until I come out with a CD to hear the rest of it.
Kids love it. 9th graders are finally getting a handle on the cases. You'd be surprised how differently a 9th grader's mind works from the mind I was using when I learned Latin my junior year of college. Maybe if they were not taking seven or eight other classes, it would be easier for them to focus!
4 comments:
that song is HIGH-LARIOUS!
You'd be surprised how differently a 9th grader's mind works from the mind I was using when I learned Latin my junior year of college. Maybe if they were not taking seven or eight other classes, it would be easier for them to focus!Isn't that the truth, on both scores! What textbook are you using? I'm using Oerberg's Lingua Latina, and am very satisfied with the results. It demands a lot of the teacher, but the students do so much reading, and thus get a lot of Latin syntax and idiom into their bones.
You can preview several pages at the author's website: http://www.lingua-latina.dk/ The worst I can say about Oerberg's Lingua Latina is that it is not supported well--there is a terrible dearth of teacher's resources. But it is so wonderful to have your students halfway into the year comfortably reading passages like this: "Dum pastor in herba dormit, ovis nigra ab ovibus albis abit et ad rivum currit. Ovis nigra oves albas relinquit et rivum petit; aquam bibit e rivo, et in silvam intrat." (Macrons are included in the text.) In each chapter, they're reading 100-200 lines of narrative like this, and it gradually increases in complexity as new grammar is introduced. Do check it out!
Where are you from Coke?
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