My first contribution to my own blog in some time. I’m trying to swear off the listservs and add a blog entry every day.
Today, late at night, it’s my activity in my classes. I gave each student a segment of a text to translate into English (yes, I do sometimes have students translate). Then I read the translations off in random order, giving each a number, as the students wrote the number of each one in the order in which they thought it occurred in the story. So 17 students each had a segment to translate; I wrote numbers one to seventeen on the board; then their numbered translations were read off by me as they put the number of each translation next to the number where they thought it occurred in the story. So if I read #12 and it sounded to them like it might have been the closing statement of the story, they would write #12 next to # 17 on their paper.
Then I asked several students to read off their numbers in sequence and I wrote them on the board next to the original 17. After 6 or 7 students had read their sequence, I then compared. Some numbers would have pretty much the same number all across e.g. #17, the closing statement, was most easily remembered, so usually most everyone put the number of the closing statement next to #17.
I am working my way into closer reading of the texts as we near the end of the year. This is one activity to hold them accountable for the details of the stories.