Using Blogs to Meet Learning Standards

Salvete omnes! (Welcome everyone!) In the ever-changing world of technology, as educators we often find ourselves falling into two roles: one as the teacher and another as the student. And that’s okay! As a former hip, cool youngster, I was once in the loop with all the new phone apps and advanced technical gadgets and doodads. But now as I cross the threshold into adulthood I find more often than not that I need to call my IT department, (AKA my fiance), to help me figure out how to use certain computer programs. But I’m always excited to learn because new technology, or even finding new uses for present technology, means a new opportunity to present information to my students that will help them succeed in my classroom and beyond.

The first online platform that I have often overlooked when planning a lesson is blogging. I’ve always thought of blogging solely as a personal online journal/diary that is updated regularly. However, after some reading and research I have come to see that blogging can serve multiple purposes and a few of those can even be academic. For this post I will be looking at a few possible ways to incorporate blogs into a beginner’s Latin class.

When I first began studying Latin during my undergraduate career, most of my courses were very grammar and vocabulary heavy with very little emphasis on Roman history. At the time this was okay because I was majoring in Classics and all my other courses focused on the history and archaeology of Rome. However, I was surprised to learn that many of my peers that studied Latin throughout high school also learned Latin in a similar way. (Disclaimer: I now realize that not all Latin teachers or professors focus solely on grammar but this was how I originally viewed Latin classes.). So because of this I always make sure to incorporate some aspect of Roman history or culture as the foundation of my lesson and build grammar activities to compliment them. Similar to how in a French or Spanish classroom you learn about the culture in addition to the language.

With this bit of background in mind, one way I could use blogging in a beginner’s Latin class could be as a follow-up activity or homework assignment. Imagine having just completed a lesson on Roman holidays and the blog assignment is a compare-and-contrast activity where students choose two holidays: one from antiquity and one modern example (for example the Saturnalia and Christmas). Once posted on our class blog, students would be encouraged to read each other’s posts to learn more about each holidays. Then throughout the year when each Roman holiday comes around on the class calendar we can refer back to the previous blog post as a reference point for class activities or discussions.  This activity would fall under performance indicator - LOTE.LA.2.1.A.A: Students demonstrate knowledge of some aspects of Greco-Roman culture and selected facts of daily life, myths, history, and architecture.

Another activity along the sames lines would be to ask students to find Ancient Roman influences that can still be seen today through books, architecture, movies and TV, and to post a short writing assignment about it on the class blog. This activity incorporates performance indicator - LOTE.LA.2.1.A.A: Students demonstrate knowledge of some aspects of Greco-Roman culture and selected facts of daily life, myths, history, and architecture. And, performance indicator - LOTE.LA.2.1.A.B: Students recognize manifestations of antiquity in the modern world.

Along more grammatical lines a class blog assignment could ask students to translate simple English sentences into Latin based on known vocabulary. Asking students to compose a Latin sentence via a blog post would allow them to improve and broaden their understanding of Latin word order and syntax. Also with the ability to comment on each other’s posts, students would be encouraged to reach out with questions on their peers’ posts asking why they chose to translate the sentence or a word in a certain way. Students could also ask questions in general about topics or certain grammar points discussed in class that they did not understand. As a safeguard, I would check on all student blog posts and comments to make sure that there wasn’t any misinformation accidentally being spread around. This activity would demonstrate performance indicator - LOTE.LA.1.1.A.B: Students write simple responses to oral, visual, or written stimuli. And, performance indicator - LOTE.LA.1.1.A.C: Students demonstrate an awareness of vocabulary, grammar, derivation, and word structure of Latin. 

Blogging is an excellent way to incorporate technology into a lesson and has the potential to become a great educational tool in the LOTE classroom.