In response to a post re Bloom’s taxonomy:
Oh, I think the taxonomy is a really neat idea. But what lesser minds do with it is the problem.
>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.
>
My original response to the message below:
Let me just add that Frank Smith quarrels with the notion that somehow the
“lower levels” of Bloom’s are somehow easier. Learning things without
meaning is extremely hard. It appears to me that you, Ginny, are trying to
inject meaning. That makes it easier, actually, even though the level on
Bloom’s might be designated as “higher”.
But then my criticism of fl teaching in general has echoed the Second
Language Acquisition theorists’, i.e. that meaning must infuse all fl
acquisition.
—– Original Message —–
Subject: Re: [Latinteach] Group Translation/developing true reading skills
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
donÃt. 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.