Here is an important article from Robert Patrick to the Latin-Best Practices list. It goes into detail and is an excellent addition to our already strong set of articles in the R and D category:
Of all the practices currently developing in the larger practice of Comprehensible Input, Reading and Discussing (R/D) in Latin was the thing that I began doing first–even before I attended my first TPRS workshop.
In my classroom, R/D continues to evolve. I will outline how it typically works these days.
–it begins with me introducing what I know are going to be new words/structures needed for the story I have in mind. Since I am working still with a textbook with GOOD stories, I start out with the story in mind, and I spend anywhere from 3-4 days to two weeks introducing new vocab, circling, PQA, asking short pre-cursor stories, until I feel like students have the new vocab.
–Depending on the complexity of the story, I might spend a day or two with embedded versions of the story.
–I put up a pre-reading help on the board for the story in which I list quis/qui, ubi, quid accidit, quae est difficultas, quid accidit (again), and quomodo resolvitur. Next to each of these, I give a very simple sentence or list, and I spend a few minutes introducing the story with these basic details so that students have an idea, now, what this story is going to be about. I do NOT give them information about “quomodo resolvitur” because, that spoils the ending of a good story.
–We begin reading. I read a few lines out loud and allow for questions about difficult spots. They ask in Latin: quomodo dicitur ______.
–Then, I ask questions. At this point, my question are designed to elicit the story from them. At the beginning of a story, and at various places throughout, they are quis/qui, ubi, until we get characters and settings in place. Soon, I begin to explore the problem, the difficultas, with them. This process goes on until we have read the story together and discussed all of its aspects, IN LATIN. Even so, it’s my job to deliver a discussion and a reading that is COMPREHENSIBLE to them in Latin. As with all things CI, this work is done with your barometer students, or those who seem to be struggling the most, in mind. If they are understanding, everyone else is, too.
–Once we have finished a story like this (may take 1, 2, or 3 days), there’s more. On the following day, I begin class by having them read the story silently to themselves, and then I take questions about any “tough spots”. Once all the tough spots are re-delivered in CI, I then ask for a couple of volunteers who will “tag-team-tell” the story (T3). These students start telling the story. One tells until she/she draws a blank which has allowed the others to think of what is missing and take up the story. The T3 continues until the story is re-told. Depending on the story and what I observe to be the interest in the room, I may call for another T3. This is simply getting more and more and more repetitions of the story, vocab, structures, etc.
–a typcial R and D progression, for me, these days, ends in a timed write. Students write all that they can about the story, to the best of their ability, for a set time (5 minutes in the early days of Latin 1, and soon 10, and then 15-20–they will tell you when they don’t have enough time and that’s time to increase it). If you have never done a timed write after this kind of discussion, you have no idea how exciting it is to watch students spent 15-20 minutes of sustained writing in Latin, almost with a madness about them trying to write down everything they can remember before the timer goes off.
So, as you can see, a typcial R/D session can lead into a writing session/series. Many of our stories beg for a “what happens next, and that becomes a writing series. If you have read the post of Ben’s on the Writing Template the possibilities for taking a story produced by the class or by individuals can be turned into an R/D series.
Bob