Ayla Lillian Wing

1000 E Ann St. Apt. 4, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104 | 313-231-9953 | ayla.wing@gmail.com | aylala@umich.edu

Sample Lesson Plan 1:

This lesson plan was originally taught to a class of sixth graders who were mastering the
second declension.

Class: Latin 6

Objectives:

• Students can translate a short Latin passage that includes nouns from the second
declension with some dictionary help.
• Students can explain the beginning of the foundation myth of ancient Rome.
• Students can identify words in English that come from Latin derivatives.
Rationale: Based on how my assessments and lessons have been going with these sixth
graders, they still need a little bit more practice with their second declension endings but
they’re past the point where little memorization exercises will interest and challenge them.
We read a chapter from the excellent book Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata that the students
really enjoyed. With this reading we’re about to do, though, we are going to practice our
endings while learning about an important event in Roman history -- the birth of its
founders! This will be an engaging cultural lesson that also helps the students practice their
grammar.

Standards Addressed in the Lesson:

1. Standard 1.1: Students read, understand, and interpret Latin or Greek.

2. Standard 2.2: Students demonstrate an understanding of the perspectives of Greek or
Roman culture as revealed in the products of the Greeks or Romans.
3. Standard 4.1: Students recognize and use elements of the Latin or Greek language to
increase knowledge of their own language.
4. Standard 4.2: Students compare and contrast their own culture with that of the Greco-
Roman world.
Agenda (42 Minutes)

1. Background/Family Tree (11 Minutes)

2. Legamus! (11 Minutes)
3. Let’s Talk about Art (6 Minutes)
4. Derivatives! (14 Minutes)
Specific Activities Including Teacher Thinking:
What I say is in red.
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What I do is in black.
Standards are in bold.
Teacher thinking is in italics.

Background
(11 Minutes)

Good morning everyone. Today we’re going to be This culture lesson is an

working with a worksheet! In a second I’ll pass it out, example of Standard 2.2
but in the meantime make sure you have a pencil or since students are
something to write with! learning about Rome
using a cultural product,
I will pass out the worksheet as students inevitably the foundation myth.
scramble. Usually at this point I engage in one 30-second
side-track conversation before I call them back. If I hit a
story from a different student every day then I get to
know them all a little bit at a time.

Alright, so in front of you is a reading about the founders

of Rome! Before we read about them, though, I need to
give you a bit of background info.

So, how many people have heard of Aeneas? Can anyone I will not be mad if no one’s
tell me who he was? heard of Aeneas, although it
is one of my lifetime goals
So, if you’ve never heard of him, he was a Trojan in the to get Aeneas to become a
Trojan War -- y’all have heard of the Trojan horse, right? household name like
He was in that war. He escaped the city and sailed Odysseus. My brother’s a
around for a while and then ended up in Italy, just north film major so perhaps I’ll
of where Rome would eventually be. He founded a city get him to make a
called Lavinium, and his son Ascanius founded a city blockbuster movie about
called Alba Longa. the Aeneid. But until then, I
will have to suffer with the
On the board I will write “Aeneas” with an arrow down knowledge that little kids
connecting him to “Ascanius.” don’t grow up hearing
about Aeneas and his cool
So, for several generations Ascanius and his sons ruled adventures. *Sigh*
Alba Longa. I will draw several dots on the family tree to
indicate descendants. Eventually, a king named Numitor
reigned. I will write Numitor at the end of the dotted
line. He was a good king, but his brother Amulius took
the throne from him. I will draw a line connected
Amulius to Ascanius too and indicating that he and
Numitor are brothers. Numitor had a son, Rhea Silvia,
and Amulius forced her to become a Vestal Virgin, which The small Lion King
was a religious office where you could never get married tangent is weirdly an

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or have children. That way, Amulius figured there would example of Standard 4.2:
never be a male descendant of Numitor who could claim students are comparing a
the throne for himself -- it’s sort of like that part in The Roman myth to a story
Lion King where Scar forces Simba to leave Pride Rock from their own time!
so that he wouldn’t try to become king. I will draw a line
from Numitor to Rhea Silvia.

So that’s all well and good for Amulius, right, he’s got the
kingship and there’s no way Rhea Silvia can have any
kids, right? WRONG! The god Mars -- who can tell me
anything about the god Mars? -- he was the god of war,
and he took a liking to Rhea Silvia, so he forced her to
marry him even though she technically wasn’t allowed
to. They had twin sons named Romulus and Remus. And
that’s where our story begins.

I will make sure the family tree on the board is updated.

Transition: Alright, now that we’ve got some background knowledge, let’s get
reading!

Legamus! (Let’s Read!)

(11 Minutes)

Okay, take a look at your worksheets now. The little Students reading is an
English blurb at the top of the page just gives you pretty example of Standard 1.1.
much the same info that I just did, except it doesn’t Students reading a
compare the story to The Lion King at all which makes it cultural story is an
less fun. example of Standard 2.2

Okay, so let’s look at the title. What does “et” mean? And,
right! So who is this story about? Yes, Romulus and
Remus, those two twins from the board over there!
Okay, let’s begin. There’s a space to write your
translation on the bottom of the back side, or you can
write it on looseleaf.

Mars est deus. What does “deus” mean? It’s god, right!
So what is this sentence? Yes, Mars is a god. A good
dramatic first sentence.

Next we have “Mars Rheam Silviam amat.” So, if Rheam

Silviam are first declension nouns, what case are they?
Right, they’re accusative! So what are they going to be in
the sentence? The Direct Objects! Feel free to take
whatever notes on the text make you feel best -- you can

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box stuff, underline, write SVDO above everything,
whatever floats your goat the most. Remember why we Important for student buy-
do things like this -- so that it becomes second nature in: reminding them exactly
when we’re reading bigger texts later on! Right. why I’m asking them all
these weird questions that
Okay, next we have “Itaque Rhea Silvia duos filios they might not immediately
habet.” Itaque might be a new word for you guys -- care about.
check the vocabulary sheet on the back side. What does
it mean? “And so,” right, it’s a transition/conjunction
word. Rhea Silvia is obviously her name, but look at
“duos filios habet.” That sentence should look familiar to
you -- remember in Lingua Latina, “Iulius et Aemila
habet duos filios.” They have two sons too! And what are
the sons’ names? “Romulum et Remum,” which in the
nominative is? Romulus and Remus, right!

Now we have a bigger sentence -- Amulius Rheam

Silviam vinculis claudit. Let’s look up “vinculis,” what
does that mean? Yeah, “in chains.” Crazy stuff. So the
sentence all together says? Amulius locks up Rhea Silvia
in chains! Yeah! So after Amulius finds out that Rhea
Silvia married Mars and had these two sons, he locks her
up! Puts her in prison! Crazy!

Okay so next we have “Amulius Romulum et Remum in

aquam ponit.” Let’s look up ponit, what does that mean?
It means to place, yeah. We actually did see this in
Lingua Latina too, do you remember Marcus and
Quintus ponit the rosas in aquam? They place the roses
into the water? Same concept. But here what do we
have? Yeah, Amulius places Romulus and Remus into the
water. Now, in aquam, is that in the water or into? Right, Asking students how they
it’s into, and how do you know? Because it’s in + the got to an answer: so
accusative, right! important!

Alright, moving forward. Lupa -- ooh, a lupa! What does

that mean? A “she-wolf,” right, a female wolf! What is
she gonna do?! Well, “Lupa ad aquam ambulat.” Ahh yes,
what does she do? She walks to the water, right. Then
what -- “Lupa Romulum et Remum bene curat et amat.”
Ooh -- what’s “bene” mean? Yeah, it means “well.” At
nerdy Latin camp my teachers would always say “bene”
instead of “good job,” because when you say it by itself
that’s basically what it means!

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So what is the Lupa doing? Right, she’s taking care of
Romulus and Remus well, and what? And, right, she
loves them. Aww! She’s acting like their mom here!
That’s the legend -- that Romulus and Remus were
supposedly raised by a wolf!

So next -- “Romulus et Remus crescunt.” Ooh, what do

they do? Check your vocab -- they grow up, yeah! And
then what? “Postea” -- what does that mean?
“Afterwards,” right. Afterwards, “Romulus et Remus
Romam aedificant.” What do they do? They build Rome,
right!

So, this story skips a lot of the history in between, but

basically, Amulius’s worst fears came true -- his
brother’s male descendants grew up, took over his
kingdom, and created an even greater one later! Man.

Transition: So now let’s take a look at the picture below the reading. Take a second
to look, then raise your hand and I’ll call on you to tell me what you see.

Mini-Art Lesson!
(6 Minutes)

I will give students some time to study the picture and Here is Standard 2.2 --
see what it looks like. There might be some grossed out we are literally
reactions, perhaps. examining a product of
the ancient Romans!
Okay, what do you all see?

It’s hard to script this part, because I want to call on

several different students to make observations about
this sculpture and I’ll repeat what they say but I can’t
predict it right now. These are some of the things I want
to hit on though:

Right, there’s a wolf here, and if you look closely at her

she looks kind of freaked out. What’s that hanging down
from her belly, do you know? Yes, the fancy science term
for those are her “mammary glands,” but basically when
a wolf has just had pups her glands fill with milk so the
puppies can eat. This happens to humans too, which is
why when this wolf found the two babies, Romulus and
Remus, she was able to feed them and keep them going.

It might be hard to tell from this picture, but the babies

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and the wolf actually look sort of different. In fact,
they’re not originally from the same statue -- the wolf
statue is very old, probably from the Etruscans, who
were the people before the Romans, and the babies were
sculpted much later, probably after the myth was widely
spread. But this is a very very famous statue. If you ever
go to Rome -- and indeed, I hope you get to someday --
the picture of this statue is everywhere. It’s on the sides
of buildings, it’s on street lamps, it’s even on sewer
grates sometimes. The Romans are really proud of this
creation myth, and this statue is sort of like their statue
of liberty.

Transition: Okay, now turn your paper to the back side to look at some of the
vocabulary.

Derivatives
(13 Minutes)

Alright, let’s look at some of these vocabulary words. Standard 4.1 -- students
Now, I’m sure you’ve already noticed or Victoria has are finding
talked to you about it, but so many English words come derivatives/learning
from Latin ones! When we point that out that can help more about English
us with our English reading because it means we’ve through Latin.
learned more words!

Take a second to look at this list of words and see what

English words you can think of that might come from
these ones.

I will give students a moment to look at their lists while I

erase our family tree and write the words “aedificant,”
“claudit,” “crescunt,” “deus,” “duos,” “habet,” and “ponit”
on the board.

Okay, what did you find?

I will listen to their findings and write them on the

board if they are ones I was already thinking of.

Excellent! Or, what was the word we just learned today -

- Bene! Now here’s the list that I used my special teacher
powers to make -- it might be helpful for y’all to write
these words next to the Latin definitions on your paper.

So first we have “aedificant.” From this word we get the

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English words “edify” and “edifice.” These have a sort of
religious connotation -- to “edify” is to build a religiously
important building, and an “edifice” is that building.

“Claudit,” believe it or not, is where we get words like

“closet,” “enclosure,” and “conclusion.” So basically, in
the past tense, this “d” turns into an “s,” and somewhere
down the linguistic line the “au” turned into an “o.” And
that’s where we get all these words! We also get the
word “claustrophobia,” from this word and from the
Greek word for feat - “phobia.” And what is
“claustrophobia?” That’s right, a fear of closed spaces!

“Crescunt” is a beautiful word, doesn’t it just sound

beautiful to say? Everybody, let’s say it all together and
the same time. 1, 2, 3: “crescunt.” Yes, ahh, it’s so
beautiful.

From this word we get words like “crescent,” like a

crescent moon because it’s a growing moon. We also get
the words “recruit” and “crew,” from this word, because
in Middle English “crew,” meant more like
“reinforcement,” -- thus your “crew” was always
growing. Cool, huh! I love derivatives.

From “deus,” we get “deify,” which means to make

someone a god. “Duos” means? Two, right. So we get a
ton of words from this word, like “double” “dual,” “duet,”
duplicate.” We even get the word “dozen” from this
word -- the “do” comes from the Latin word and the
“zen” comes from the German word for 10 - neat, huh!

From “habet,” we get “habit” (which is a thing you have)

as well as “ability,” (get it? hability?). We also get the
word “prohibit,” which describes a thing you can’t have.

And now lastly, we have “ponit.” Just like in the word

“claudit,” the “n” turns into an “s” in the past tense, so
we get tons of words like “position,” from this word
“ponit.” We also get “depot,” which is a place where you
put stuff, and “preposition,” which is a word placed
before (get it, because “pre-” means “before!”)

Transition: Alright everyone, thank you for being so lovely this class! MAKE SURE
YOUR NAME IS ON YOUR PAPER and if you wrote your translation on a looseleaf page
I would ask that you staple it to the worksheet, just so I know what it is -- remember I

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told you about the seventh grade work yesterday, right?

Okay, get out of here! I’ll see you all tomorrow!

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