Feature Posts

International Idol 2014

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I have written about International Idol before. It is a yearly event that our language department puts on in which students sing and perform in the target language. In my previous article I discuss its merits, which include practicing the skill of memorization/recitation, interpreting and translating lyrics, dancing, and class unity.
Here are some highlights from this year’s event, including videos, lyrics, and music. The Latin acts did well this year, and the video below was a top contender.

“Valete” (A translation of N’Sync’s “Bye Bye Bye”)

Not only did the students help to translate the songs, but they also memorized them and sang them while performing complex dance moves in front of a full auditorium. It was no easy feat (I should know – that’s me dancing in the front.)
The first step is picking a song. This year I had 3 classes which chose Bastille’s “Pompeii,” Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and N’Sync’s “Bye Bye Bye.” I pasted English lyrics in Google Docs, then had students contribute words, phrases, and ideas for the translations. As I mentioned in my article last year, I try to focus translations on the rough meanings of the lines and to fit the rhythm and rhyming of the original song.
Next, I sang the lyrics to instrumental tracks. I used Audacity, a free program for Mac and PC. I am not a great singer, and the purpose was to give the students an idea of how the Latin words work within the melody and cadence of the song. It also acts as a backup when they sing the night of the competition, since they’d otherwise be at a disadvantage (the French and Spanish songs have vocals on them.) I encourage students to record their own voices, which always sounds much better then my own (have a listen to the alternate version of Pompeii by one of my students!) Here is a link to my SoundCloud account, where I post the songs for students to access. You will notice not only this year’s songs, but last year’s as well.
Once the music is set, it is a matter of memorizing the lyrics and choreographing something for the performance. Students really shine at this time and bring so many creative ideas to the table. For example, the background to “Pompeii” featured a giant cardboard volcano with “lava” streamers. Every year I am blown away by the effort, creativity, enthusiasm, and sheer fun that the students experience during the process.
I hope this gives you some ideas. Even if you cannot manage to start a department-wide event, consider translating songs for fun. You could still choreograph and perform a dance and post it to Youtube. Who knows, maybe one day we could have a national Latin singing and dancing contest. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

CANE 2014 Meeting Highlights

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ver appropinquat, and that means that convention season is upon us! The annual meeting just happened, NECTFL is swiftly approaching, and the summer brings the ACL Institute and (let’s not forget, the CANE Summer Institute; registration open now!). Since Emily just wrote on the importance and value of attending conventions, I thought I might share about all the great presentations, lectures, and opporunities you might have missed if you couldn’t make it to CANE this past weekend.
Like many of us, I drove to frigidly lovely Manchester, NH and the campus of St. Anselm’s. I only got lost twice, so that’s a bit of a record in this day of GPS and Google Maps. Most of the conference took place at the New Hampshire Insitute of Politics, long a nexus for the famous, ambitious, and powerful to make their mark on public life. And so, amongst photographs and other memorabilia of campaigns past, I sat down for what turned out to be one of the best CANE meetings in years.
Great Workshops
My day started with Joseph Delany and Thomas Pandolfini’s sequel to last year’s “Teaching through Art.” They discussed art’s use as historical narrative and a desire to make connections between the past and present, from depictions of Washington as Cincinnatus to Jacque-Louis David’s Roman paintings which are really commentaries on the French Revolution. Email Thomas Pandolfini for more details and materials they shared.
Though I didn’t make it to Lydia Fassett and Katy Reddick’s “Why Twitter?” workshop, the room itself was bursting with people learning the artem breviloquendi (first found at Cic. Epistulae ad Atticum 7.20.1.1, not that he’d ever limit himself to 140 characters). If you’re interested, check out #CANE2014 to find people’s comments, discussion, and pictures of the annual meeting.
Ruth Breindel, CANE’s Treasurer and long-time ludimagistra at the Moses Brown School in Providence, RI, treated participants to the story of Daniel and how his stories have come down through the ages in music, dance, and theater. My favorite was the swing version of Asrach, Mesach, and Abednego and the production of the medieval Daniel play at the Cloisters (Metropolitian Museum of Art – website review), which inspired Ms. Breindel’s students to do their own version. Interested in details? Ruth is happy to share; just email her and send her a flashdrive for a cornucopia of Latinity!
I also didn’t go to the UMASS Amherst grad-student “Multiculturalism in the Latin Classroom,” though fama est the lessons presented were amazing. Like me, you can see everything they did by pointing your device to their Google site.
Anne Mahoney (Tufts) presided over a fascinating forum magistrorum, where participants shared lessons, activities, and projects. Ben Revkin, fellow CANEns editor and stalwart webmaster, set up a shared Google Drive folder that you can raid for great ideas. My favorites are Allyson Bunch’s “Aftermath of Caesar’s Assassination”, which I’m already planning on using this week (because Ides!), Jocelyn Demuth’s “How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse in Latin”, and Sara Allen’s “Latin Uno” ready-made cards. Take a look and, if you want, add something of yours in exchange!
Kevin Ballestrini, of Operation LAPIS and Card-Tamen fame, shared with us the modern language technique of the “embedded reading,” where you take an original text and simplify in several tiers to end up with a text that your students can understand easily as Latin, and then work backwards until the students are reading the original. You can see his presentation slides or look directly at a sample embed of De bello Gallico 5.37.
Great Lectures
This year had some very interesting topics – here are some of the highlights of what I heard.

  1. a whole series of lectures on Ovid, including a great talk by Keeley Schell on the connections between Hyacinthus and the story of Tarquin’s message to his son, and Karen Mower’s discussion of how Circe uses the “amorous” techniques of earlier stories in her own quest for Picus.
  2. a series of lectures on meter, including Anne Mahoney’s ruminations on half-lines explaining the placement noun-adjective pairs, and Andrew Sweet’s use of Garage Band to explain metrical rhythym and ictus/accent mismatch through rap back-beats (see Sweet’s blog for more).
  3. Mary Papoutsy’s talk on Lesbos and the archaeological work being done there (those pictures make me want to take a vacation there!), Jim Capreedy’s use of maps to teach concepts in ancient history (peruse a mapping program he and a friend cooked up), and Jocelyn Demuth’s use of storytelling to enliven and build interest in a middle school Latin program.

All of this are samples of the great things being offered at the CANE Annual Meeting, and of course there was much more I didn’t see or have the space to write about. As you can see, there’s something for everyone – professors, college students, teachers of classics at all levels. I hope to see you at the annual meeting next year, and don’t forget about other regional conferences coming soon (NECTFL, CAM spring meeting, ACL Institute, and the CANE Summer Institute)!

Conferences: Why We Need to Care 5

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Last weekend, I attended SALVI’s Biduum Virginianum.  As we sat around dinner talking on Friday night, one of the participants mentioned that he was going to NECTFL in March.  Another participant looked at him incredulously.  “Do you teach another language too?” he asked.  The NECTFL-goer shook his head no.  “Then why,” asked the other participant, “would you go to a modern language conference?”
The truth is that Latin is not always accepted or even noticed by other foreign language teachers.  Yes, it is starting to get better, and already has at some schools, but we are still, mostly, in our own game.  Yes, it is important to go to the Classical conferences, such as CANE, but more Latin teachers need to start going to the Regional conferences, like NECTFL.  But why?  Why should we take time to go to a conference that doesn’t pertain directly to us, people ask.  Here is my response to that:
Last year, I attended ACTFL in Orlando, Florida.  Encouraged by the fact that Bob Patrick was the first ever Latin Teacher nominee for Language Teacher of the Year, Latin teachers turned out in force.  As a result, there were more sessions that pertained directly to Latin.  Teachers of other languages remarked over and over again, to each other, on Twitter, and to me directly, “Wow, there are a LOT of Latin teachers here.”  We were noticed.
There are techniques we can learn from the Modern languages and there are techniques they can learn from us.  TPRS, Whole Brain Teaching, Reading strategies, connecting across the languages, cool summer programs…the list goes on and on.
There are vendors who do not necessarily have products for Latin…yet.  If we want cool products for Latin, too, we must visit the vendor tables and talk to the vendors, and show them that there is a need and a market for these products and how their products could be adapted for Latin.
Latin may be a bit strange to other teachers, who believe it to be “dead.”  We need to make it come alive.  We can do this by speaking it, and learning the “Modern Language Strategies”  to demonstrate this to the Modern Language Teachers and our Administrations.  (HINT: Many administrations get very excited when a Latin teacher asks to go to a Foreign Language conference and makes the argument that they want to learn more about language teaching!  Often, you can score some money!)
Let me put this challenge to you:  Go to a Foreign Language Conference. (NECTFL is in BOSTON this year–March 27-30!!)  Take a serious look at the program and try, with an open mind, to attend one session about a teaching technique that is not specifically for Latin.  If you do not come away with something useful, try another one.  I can make this promise to you:  You will go home with something interesting–whether you needed a reminder or it is totally new to you.
We Latin and Classics teachers may be the “odd” bunch, but we are by no means the ugly stepchildren.  Getting everyone else to see that as well requires taking an interest in ALL language pedagogy and working with the other languages.  We can just keep talking about how no one notices Latin and that we don’t have interesting products for Latin, or we can do something about it.  It’s time to start changing everyone’s thoughts about Latin.  So, Sodales, take up the challenge!