Teaching Latin Indirect Statement

This year I challenged myself to think of grammatical topics as presentations I might give at a conference. How do you take a Latin topic and make it engaging for adolescents? Of all the topics I teach my 8th graders, Latin Indirect Statement worried me the most. Part of this was due to years of teaching high school Latin with sequence of tenses, but at the middle school level I only have to teach present tense infinitives, so it turned out to be much more pleasant. As all teachers can attest, because I had put the most effort into these activities (because I was so apprehensive, I wanted to be over-prepared), the students retained the material much better than I expected.

Our middle school doesn’t use a textbook strictly; we asked Admin to allow us to make our own, while following LNM’s vocabulary to align with our high school.

My highlights for teaching Latin Indirect Statement turned into this:

First day: Take Latin Indirect Statement notes

• I like to complete guided notes along with my students when I introduce new material

• I use PDFs of my own self-created notes in the iPad app Notability which I then fill out using my Apple Pencil while airplaying my iPad on my White Board.

• Airplaying while completing the notes with students allows me to move around the room. I find that energy during instruction not only helps students stay focused, but hopefully it gives them a positive attitude about the grammar1

Second day: Latin Indirect Statement Task Cards

• I created 2 documents: sentence prompts (e.g. Station 1: Puto lupum amari) & answer sheet

• Answer sheet had station # along with “I think that…” since each sentence started with “Puto”. Because this was the first day after introduction to the material, it helped to remind them that every sentence should begin with “I think that"…”

• I had 10 stations and had students work in pairs. They had one minute at each station and each pair started at a different station #

• Since Latin Indirect Statement maybe is not the most exciting topics for 8th graders (what? who said that? I know they’re my favorite topic!) so I included a game aspect to increase excitement

  • Students graded each other’s and assigned a score

  • Students received # according to their score (1, 2, or 3, 3 being the best)

  • We played a white-elephant-style-gift-exchange and the could steal the # of times they scored!

  • I did not buy actual gifts— I found small tokens around my room. Latin stickers, a piece of chocolate, a penny… the sillier the better!

Third day: Indirect Statement QR Code Scavenger Hunt

• I used QRstuff.com and created QR’s with text

• I created 9 QR’s with Latin prompts and 9 QR’s with location clues

• I posted Location Clue QR’s in classroom but they could not scan the next location clue until I had approved their Latin translation

• Latin translation prompt QR codes were posted around campus— one team member scurried to the location, scanned the code, and brought their iPad back to the classroom to write down the answer on their answer sheet with their group

Fourth day: Indirect Statement Translation marathon with correlating scenes from the movie Troy

• Example— following the scene of Patroclus putting on Achilles’ armor

  • Achilles audit Patroclum a Hectore necari.

Sixth day: Indirect Statement Quiz

Bona Fortuna in creating your own engaging Latin Indirect Statement lesson plans! If you want to see more of what I’ve created, here are my Latin Indirect Statement Activities!