Westover School Latin Composition Project Timeline

Westover School Latin Composition Project Timeline

Kathryn L. Albee (Instructor in Latin & ESL; Language Department Chair)

September:

Students were told that they would be working on original Latin compositions next month. I encouraged them to be thinking about what they might want to do. I told them about composition projects that were done by the previous year’s students and we discussed the pros and cons of different types of projects. I also told them that I would be submitting most of their projects to the SCRIBO contest. I made it clear that a quality original composition was the priority, that the contest was a secondary step, a bonus.

October:

As we began work on the composition project, I told the students that the SCRIBO contest guidelines state that their compositions should “take the form of stories, comics, or poems”. I also told them that my own interpretation of what might count as a story or comic was quite broad, that I really wanted them to work on composing something that was interesting and engaging to them. After each student submitted a one-sentence summary of what they intended to compose, I had a brief conversation with each to discuss where she might need to limit herself or challenge herself.

We viewed the CD of excellent submissions from the 2011 SCRIBO contest. As we looked at the compositions, I asked students to note what they saw for vocabulary and grammar. They tried to guess from what level of Latin each submission had come, and I encouraged them to make their own level clear in their own compositions.

Students were given four class periods (three 40-minute periods and one 60-minute period) and the corresponding homework time for working on the initial project and using classroom grammar and vocabulary resources.

They each submitted their projects to me, and I marked the errors. I also gave each project two ratings (NOT grades) on a scale of 1-10: one for the level of overall accuracy of the composition, one for the level of difficulty appropriate to their level of Latin study. Students then used these ratings to determine what level of revision needed to occur.

November:

Students took two more class periods and the corresponding homework time to polish their compositions. Students were given grades based on their use of class time, level of accuracy, level of difficulty, and creativity/originality.