Students returned to school yesterday, making today our first full day of instruction. So how did we begin in a Latin I class to grasp the language and culture we will be studying? We started by talking about the when and the where of it all.
The students discussed in small groups in what way it is important when meeting someone new to learn when that person was born and where he or she is from. As those small groups reported in the full class discussion, it would be important to know these things because they shape how people think and talk. People from particular times and places have certain ways of seeing the world, and it is important to know this in order to understand them better.
Did I mention that I have brilliant students?
They then returned to their small groups to discuss what, if anything, any of them knew about the when and the where of Rome. Full class discussion led to a timeline and a quickly drawn map of the Mediterranean world, and then I asked more questions. If the time period we will study is two to three thousand years in our past and the location is in the Mediterranean climate, what topics will we likely read about or not read about this year? The students concluded that we would likely study war, but not any product powered by electricity, that we would study clothing and food, but probably not winter gear.
