I started by collecting the homework from last lesson (see lesson 10). Generally speaking, the students were able to successfully follow the instructions given. There were a couple, however, that didn’t change the name to a ‘Latinised’ form, so I will give them a little more direction.
2. I reminded the students that we are in the computer labs next lesson.
3. I then asked the class if they had any questions about what they had learnt so far, or wanted to make any comments. (I’ve been packing the lessons pretty full with activities, so I thought it would be worthwhile pausing for a moment to hear what they have been thinking about.) There were some interesting observations and questions.
4. We now began the lesson with our customary greeting.
5. a) I put Capitulum Secundum Pars Prima up on the board, and we read it together. They had already seen all of the vocabulary while reading Simpsones (see Lesson 10). I explained to them that this was the ‘familia‘ that the book was named after, and that we would be following this family throughout the entire book. We had a short discussion about Latin names. One of the students put up their hand and asked whether this meant that Aemilia’s father was Aemilius, which I thought was very clever. You can access this story here.
b. Reading this story led to a brief but frank discussion about human enslavement. I acknowledged that they may be upset by the fact that this family enslaved other humans, owning them as property and forcing them to labour. I said that our textbook was very ‘matter-of-fact’ about this point, but that that shouldn’t stop them from having thoughts of their own. There were some interesting and thoughtful questions about human enslavement in Rome. I introduced them to the four named characters - see image below - but told them that the story tells us that this family had enslaved 100 (mostly unnamed) humans. I assume that most of them were working the family’s property.
c. We now read the remainder of Pars Prima together, with me reading the narration and Livia, and the students reading the adolescents. It was fine, but this was the first time that I got the sense that the students were maybe a little bored from reading together off the board. It may be time to try a few different methods of reading.
d. I asked the students what the endings on words like Marci, Quinti and Iuliae were doing, and the students remembered from last lesson that they were ‘like an apostrophe s’.
Note: Usually after reading together I ask the students to reread on their own. But as this was basically the same text as Simpsones, I went straight on to the next activity.
6. I now asked the students to take out their exercise books and textbooks to complete Pensum A in Capitulum Primum. This was the first time that the students had done a Pensum, so I explained that the dashes after the words were asking them to complete the word (eg. fluvi-) or add a word (eg. Creta insula _____). We did the first paragraph together, with the students writing out the full sentences into their books. The students then did as much of the remainder of the exercise as they could in the 12 minutes or so remaining. I told them that we would mark their work once we were back in the classroom, after our computer lab lesson. I said that finishing this would be homework, to be done for that lesson.
Note: As I walked around the room, I noticed two things. 1) There was a mix or correct and incorrect answers. 2) The students worked at very different paces, with some just about finishing, while others wrote around five or six lines. I will be introducing them to an electronic version of the Pensa, so perhaps this will help.