Tag: latin

Critiquing literary criticism

As we approach the second and final GCSE literature exam and as I continue to work with a huge number of Year 11s preparing for the verse paper, I cannot help but feel a little depressed about how difficult students seem to find the process of stylistic analysis. There is no other area in which I have observed even the most brilliant of scholars to be floundering so badly. So what are we getting wrong when it comes to the teaching, or is this aspect of the exam just insurmountably difficult?

Before I make my observations I wish to say that I include myself and my own teaching in what I have to say. Throughout my career I have watched students struggle with this aspect of the examination, so my observations of my tutees who are now wrestling with this are in no way meant to imply that I think I was “getting it right” when I was at the chalkface – indeed what follows is definitely a criticism of myself and my own approaches. How I have tackled the teaching of literary criticism evolved and improved over the years and my focus now with tutees is different from how I might have approached the problem 20 years ago, but students in my class struggled just as much as I see my clients struggling now. I believe this is something that all of us in Classics education need to do better and the more I think about it the more I believe we are woefully lacking in ideas when it comes to what to do.

Below are a couple of key observations of what seems to happen in Latin classes (including my own in the past) and which I think might be compouding the difficulties that students have with this particularly challenging element of the syllabus.

First of all, many schools massively over-teach technical/rhetorical terms. This mistake is encouraged by the resources published by ZigZag, used in Classics departments across the country, which start the process of literary criticism with a baffling list of rhetorical devices which (it is implied) students must have a grasp of before they even embark on the process of responding to the literature.

A ZigZag resource I was sent for review started with 16 pages of explanation of various terms from anaphora to polyptoton, each with an accompanying activity. Students are expected to learn the meaning of all of these devices and then learn to spot them in the Latin. Full disclosure: I used to do this. Why? I have absolutely no idea. It was stupid. I probably did it partly because everybody else was doing it. Also, like many other Classics teachers, I rather like literary devices and personally gain quite a lot of geek-filled pleasure from spotting them in everyday language and popular music. He watches afternoon repeats and the food he eats is a zeugma in a song by Blur from the 1990s; you held your breath and the door for me is another great one in a song by Alanis Morisette. But do students need to know any of these stylistic terms to gain full marks in the literature questions? No, they don’t. A brief look at any mark scheme makes it clear that technical terms offer little advantage other than time-saving; if a student calls something an anaphora rather than just “repetition at the start of a line/clause” it won’t gain them any more marks. Furthermore, the mark scheme’s expectation is that students answer the question with a plausible response as to why the author did what he did, rather than simply play a game of spot-the-device. The examiner doesn’t want to see “there is anaphora in these lines”. What he wants to see is something like, “the repetition of ter … ter (three times … three times) at the start of these two lines highlights Aeneas’s desperation to embrace his father, which he tries to do in vain”. No technical terms are required – students must simply consider why Virgil chose to repeat the word ter at the start of the line. In my experience, teaching students to spot the technical devices is counter-productive: it makes them think they have made a valid point when they haven’t because they have used a clever word.

The second thing I think we get wrong is to give students too much complex information. Many of my tutees have admitted that their notes are so jumbled and full of information (and technical terms) that they can’t make any sense of them. To ask a 15-year-old to take clear, decipherable notes on such a complex topic which they will then be able to learn and apply in an examination situation is asking rather too much in my opinion. Allied to this is my belief that “learning the style notes” is simply not possible. There is way too much literature to make this a viable approach. Students instead must learn to respond to a section of the literature and say some sensible things about it under pressure.

In recent years I have tried to teach students to look for really basic techniques and encourage them to think about the author’s craft using a simple acronym: MRSVP

Meaning
Repetition
Sound
Vivid (= historic) present
Position

Meaning is at the top because students must always be able to tell the examiner what the word means (and therefore why the author has chosen to repeat it or promote it or whatever). However it is the other four points that students need to be using to be talking about style. They are things which are relatively easy to spot – is a word repeated? Has it been put at the start of a line or next to another word for a reason? Is there a sound repeated for a reason? These are the basic fundamentals of the kind of literary criticism that the examiner wants to see.

I am confident in my use of this method as a few years ago I shared it at a training day which was being run by an OCR examiner. Not only did he describe it as “brilliant” but he started using it himself – indeed, it was included in his materials at the next training session I attended. However, in my experience it is no silver bullet. I have taught the acronym to every cohort of students in my final years at the chalkface and they still found the process incredibly difficult. Now I have had time away from the chalkface to reflect, I think what I was getting wrong is not being explicit enough in training them in the process of “seeing” these things in a text. If I had my time again I would dedicate a part of a lesson to each individual device and give students multiple sections from the text and ask them to spot it – “which words are repeated in this passage?” or “find the historic present verbs in this passage.” I would then use that task – spotting one of the basic stylistic methods in a familiar passage – as a regular Do Now at the start of every lesson. Until they were frankly sick of it.

I think it was this lack of very explicit training that was the mistake on my part – finding examples seems such a simple task to a subject expert and we must remember that it is not: children need to practise how to do it. One of the most interesting things about teaching is the process of constant reflection and asking yourself how you could do something better; it is somewhat frustrating that these thoughts are coming to me with perhaps even greater ease now I have had some time away from the chalkface to reflect. I hope perhaps that others will read this and consider applying my ideas.

Photo by Héctor J. Rivas on Unsplash

The use of the historic present in Echo & Narcissus: OCR GCSE set text

This week my blog continues to be inspired by a random question which was sent to me via WhatsApp by a student:

Hi! I’m doing my Latin GCSE next week, and I was wondering … how to recognize the historic present, as I’ve tried to simply learn the words … however thats not quite working and I was wondering if there were any specific sign posts to signify that it is the use of the historic present. Thank you!!

A fortnight ago I examined the prose texts currently being studied in the overwhelming majority of schools and last week I covered the Virgil text. Here I shall take a look at Echo & Narcissus, the longest text in the alternative verse selections for 2023 and 2024. For details on the historic present in general and why I believe that students find it trickier than we might imagine, please refer to my original blog post on the prose texts.

Examples of the historic present in Echo & Narcissus

  1. The set texts opens with a historic present verb, although it is important to remember that this is not the beginning of Virgil’s narrative – the GCSE set text is an extract from a very long work called The Metamorphoses. Still, the very first word of our text is not only in the historic present but is a promoted verb: aspicit hunc trepidos agitantem in retia cervos: she catches sight of this man, driving frightened stags into his nets.
  2. The next occurence of the historic present, when Ovid jumps out of his past narrative for effect is here: sequitur vestigia furtim: she follows his footsteps stealthily. The same verb is repeated in the same form in the line below – repetition occurs throughout the text and is part of the game that Ovid is playing with the idea of echo and reflection throughout the text.
  3. The next clear example is when Narcissus first responds to Echo: hic stupet: he is amazed. His reaction continues in the historic present for this entire section, with dimittit, clamat, vocat, respicit and perstat all in the historic present, making vivid the young man’s bewliderment as he hears his words repeated back to him.
  4. Echo’s joyful response to Narcissus also uses the historic present, when she acts out the words she is able to repeat (let us come together): et verbis favet ipsa suis: and she herself follows her own words.
  5. When it comes to Echo’s response to her rejection, the entire passage which describes her feeling rejected, hiding in the woods, covering her face with leaves and wasting away into a non-corporeal entitry is all written in the present tense.
  6. The poem slides back into the past tense briefly to describe Narcissus tiring from the heat and hunting, before jumping back into the present tense to describe him quenching his thirst at the spring and his second thirst (for his own reflection) coming upon him: dumque sitim sedare cupit: while he wishes to quench his thirst is the first example, then dum bibit (while he is drinking) and spem sine corpore amat (he falls in love with hope without substance). The present tense verbs then continue for the enstire description of Narcissus’s love for himself; many of them are repeated in different forms as Ovid plays around with the idea of reflection throughout this section. Ovid does not return to the past tense narrative until his exclammation irrita fallaci quotiens dedit oscula fonti: oh how often he gave kisses to the deceitful spring. He then returns immediately to the present tense when he returns to his game of reflection: quid videat nescit, sed quod videt: he does not know what he is seeing, but what he is seeing … and oculos idem qui decipit incitat error: the same delusion which deceives his eyes provokes them.
A section of the painting “Echo and Narcissus” by John William Waterhouse; it is held at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool

The use of the historic present in Virgil Aeneid VI: OCR GCSE set text

This week my blog continues to be inspired by a random question which was sent to me via WhatsApp by a student:

Hi! I’m doing my Latin GCSE next week, and I was wondering … how to recognize the historic present, as I’ve tried to simply learn the words … however thats not quite working and I was wondering if there were any specific sign posts to signify that it is the use of the historic present. Thank you!!

Last week I examined the prose texts currently being studied in the overwhelming majority of schools – Sagae Thessalae and Pythius. I started with the prose texts because the student enquiring asked specifically about the Sagae text, plus the prose exam is imminent, on May 26th. From my work with a wide range of tutees it seems that there is a more even split between students who are studying the Virgil text and those who are studying the Amor texts – Echo & Narcissus plus the three shorter poems – so I am going to look at both selections. This week my attention is turned to the Virgil.

For details on the historic present in general and why I believe that students find it trickier than we might imagine, please refer to my blog post from last week.

Examples of the historic present in Virgil Aeneid VI

The first thing to note is that much of the whole text is written entirely in the present tense, where Virgil is describing what this area of the Underworld looks like or when he is using direct speech, both of which occur throughout the selections on the specification. It is only the examples I highlight below that should be classified as historic present.

The first concrete example of the historic present occurs after Virgil has begun to describe the events observed by Aeneas in the past tense in lines 313-314, then suddenly switches into the present in lines 315-316:

navita sed tristis nunc hos hunc accipit illos,
ast alios longe summotos acrcet harena.
But the grim boatman takes now these, now those,
while others he pushes away, driven off far from the sand.

Virgil has already created a sense of pathos in the previous lines, describing the souls begging to be allowed across the Styx; here the arbitrary and callous nature of Charon is heightened by the historic present verbs.

The next example is in line 384, where the continued journey of Aeneas and the Sybil is given in the present tense, which then switches back to the past narrative in the lines that follow:

ergo iter inceptum peragunt fluvioque propinquant.
Therefore they continue the journey [they had] begun and approach the river.

In line 387 Charon’s aggressive greeting to Aeneas and the Sibyl is also introduced in the historic present:

sic prior adgreditur dictis atque increpat ultro
First he addresses them thus with words and rebukes them spontaneously.

The next example occurs in line 407 where Charon has been affected by the Sybil’s response:

tumida ex ira tum corda residunt.
Then his heart calms down from its surging anger.

Charon’s immediate response is then enlivened by a series of numerous historic present verbs in lines 410-413:

caeruleam advertit puppim ripaeque propinquat:
inde alias animas, quae per iuga longa sedebant,
deturbat, laxat foros. simul accipit alveo
ingentem Aenean.
He turns around his dark blue craft and approaches the riverbank, then he drives away the other souls , who were sitting along the long benches, and he clears the gangways; at the same time he receives mighty Aeneas into the boat.

The description of Aeneas climbing into the boat then reverts to the past tense narrative, before the next action of Charon in line 416:

incolumes vatum virumque … exponit
He puts ashore both the priestes and the hero, unharmed.

The next example is not until line 703 where Aeneas catches sight of the more pleasant aspects of the Underworld:

interea videt Aeneas
Meanwhile Aeneas sees …

This is done again in line 710 when Aeneas’s response to the sight of numerous souls is one of strangeness and fear:

horrescit visu subito …
Aeneas shudders at the sudden sight …

The promotion of the verb and the use of the adverb subito further heightens the vividness of this descrption.

The actions of Anchises where he takes hold of Aeneas and leads him to a position where he can better see the march of future souls is the final use of the historic present, in lines 753-754:

dixerat Anchises natumque unaque Sibyllam
conventus trahit in medios turbamque sonantem,
et tumulum capit …
Anchises had spoken and he takes his son and the Sibyl alongside him into the midst of the assembly and the murmuring crowd and chooses a mound …

The soul of Anchises with Aeneas and the Sibyl at the entrance to the underworld; by Biagio Manfredi — Getty Images

The use of the historic present in Sagae Thessalae and Pythius: OCR GCSE set texts

This week’s post is inspired by a random question which was sent to me via WhatsApp by a student:

Hi! I’m doing my Latin GCSE next week, and I was wondering … how to recognize the historic present, as I’ve tried to simply learn the words in Sagae Thessalae however thats not quite working and I was wondering if there were any specific sign posts to signify that it is the use of the historic present. Thank you!!

Students do find historic presents hard to spot and I believe there are a variety of reasons for this. Firstly, something we Latin teachers perhaps fail to address is that students are specifically taught by their English teachers that a change of tense is a very bad thing. They get marked down for it. In the ancient world, by contrast, a switch in tense was considered fine writing and done for deliberate effect; I do wonder whether the modern view that it is poor writing inhibits our students in their ability to respond to it.

A technical reason students find it hard is that most of them are not taught morphology in detail. Certainly I did not have the teaching time to enlighten students as to the details of all five conjugations and how their stems change, so students’ ability to spot the difference between a present tense of a 3rd or mixed conjugation verb and its perfect tense, and indeed the difference between a present tense verb and the future tense of the 3rd, 4th and mixed conjugations will probably be hazy.

One possible approach is to scrupulously translate historic presents in the present tense, but given our modern disquiet with switching tenses this can end up spoiling the narrative as a whole in translation. Another solution is to mark them up in the text, and the version of Sagae Thessalae which I have borrowed and adapted from the inimitable Mark Wilmore does exactly that – all historic presents are marked with an asterisk.

It is important for students to bear in mind that not every present tense verb will be in the historic present. A historic present is defined as a change into the present tense when the narrative is taking place in the past. As a general rule, therefore, direct speech doesn’t count, as the present tense is probably simply a report of exactly what was said. Nor does it count if the entire narrative is written in the present tense, although of course if an author decides to write an entire narrative in the present, then that in itself is done for effect. But what you’re looking out for for the historic present is a sudden switch into the present tense within a past-tense narrative. This is done deliberately to make the scene vivid.

Given the imminence of the literature examinations and the fact that this student who contacted me is probably not the only one struggling with this, I have decided to do a quick sweep of the main set texts and point out the historic presents in them. This week I am looking at the prose, which is being examined on May 26th – I will look at the verse texts next week and the week after.

Examples of the historic present in Pythius

Most of Pythius is written in the past tense, but a series of historic present tense verbs towards the end highlight Canius’s bewilderment and panic as he realises he’s been conned: invitat Canius postridie familiares suos. venit ipse mature. cumbam nullam videt. quaerit a proximo vicino num feriae piscatoram essent: on the next day, Canius invites his close friends; he himself comes over early; he seems not one fishing boat; he asks his nextdoor neighbour whether it was a fishermen’s holiday. Note that three of the verbs are promoted also, which further strengthens the vivid effect.

Examples of the historic present in Sagae Thessalae

Sagae Thessalae is peppered with verbs in the historic present; below is a summary of them:

  1. medio in foro senem conspicio: I catch sight of an old man in the middle of the forum.
  2. animum meum commasculo: I strengthen my spirit. Actually the verb means something like “make manly” – Thelyphron actually tells himself to “man up”.
  3. et statim me perducit ad domum quandam: he leads me at once to a certain house. perducit is also a compound verb – the preposition per glued onto the front of it also makes the action more vivid.
  4. ubi demonstrat matronam flebilem: where he points out a weeping woman.
  5. mustela terga vertit et a cubiculo protinus exit: the weasel turns its back and goes out of the bedroom immediately.
  6. somnus tam profundus me repente demergit: a sleep so deep suddenly overwhelms me.
  7. cadaver accuro: I run over to the corpse.
  8. omnia diligenter inspicio: nihil deest: I carefully inspect everything: nothing is missing.
  9. ecce! uxor misera flens introrumpit: look! The wretched wife burst bursts in, weeping. Here you could talk about the emphatic interjection ecce! as well as the historic present verb.
  10. reddit sine mora praemium: she hands over my reward without delay. Here you could mention the fact that the verb is promoted as well as in the historic present.
  11. immitto me turbae: I push my way into the crowd. Here again you could mention the fact that the verb is promoted as well as in the historic present.
  12. et surgit cadaver et profatur: and the corpse rises up [and] speaks out. The use of polysyndeton (repeated conjunctions/connectives) further dramatises these historic presents.
  13. respondet ille de lectulo et … populum sic adloquitur: he responds thus from the bier and addresses the people in this way. The first of these two historic presents is promoted also.
  14. igitur ignarus exsurgit … ianuam adit: therefore he unwillingly gets up … [and] goes to the door.
  15. sagae ceram … ei applicant nasumque …. comparant: the witches attach wax to him and fit on a nose.
  16. temptare formam incipio. manu nasum prehendo: sequitur; aures pertracto: deruunt: I begin to examine my appearance. With my hand I grasp my nose: it comes off. I touch my ears. They fall off. Here you could talk about the tightly-packed sequence of historic presents. I would also mention the literal meaning of sequitur – his nose “follows” his hand as he takes it away from his face.
  17. et dum turba … me denotat … effugio: and while the crowd identifies me … I make my escape. Mention also that denotat is a compound verb.

OCR Latin GCSE language – exam technique

GCSE candidates for 2023 are facing their first exam on Tueday May 16th. I have written recently on specific aspects of the paper, in particular the grammar questions and the derivatives question, but this is a generalised post about how to approach the examinantion as a whole.

The Latin language paper is one of the few examinations in which most students will not be under time pressure. Obviously there are always exceptions, and I have had some students who are exceptionally cautious or methodical in their approach find themselves run out of time – but this is very rare. Most students finish the paper early and many finish it within around half the time that is allocated to them. This can lull students into a false sense of security, and there have been few experiences more frustrating in my time than watching students close their paper and choose to spend their remaining time sparing into space. Examiners are not stupid, and the time allocated to candidates is done so for a reason. There is a great deal of time allocated to the language paper because a high degree of accuracy is demanded in order for students to perform exceptionally well.

So what should candidates be doing with all of the spare time that they will – as a general rule – have on their hands? Here are my key bits of advice.

  1. First priority is to go back to the start of the examination and check the bits of the paper that you found easy and did quickly, which is most likely to be the simple comprehension questions in Section A. This is where you are most likely to spot minor errors. Use the time to check your work and look for minor slips such as translating a singular as a plural or vice versa – these kids of errors will lose you marks that you are perfectly capable of scoring.
  2. Return to the derivatives question. This question asks you to define the derivative as well as to give one. Check whether you have chosen the best possible example of a derivative, by which I mean whether have selected one that you can define. For example, in the specimen paper the examiner asks for a derivative from the word credo (I trust or believe) and almost all students immediately plump for credit, which is actually really tough to define in relation to the meaning of the original Latin word; much better to select credible, which defines as believable, or incredible, which you can define as unbelievable. Using the spare time that you have to think of a better derivative could win you an extra 2-4%.
  3. Check your grammar questions. Some of them have more than one possible answer, so check that you have chosen the most solid answer that you are definitely sure of. Check and double check that you have answered all parts of each question as accurately as you can.
  4. Check your answers to the comprehension in Section B and return to the parts of the translation in Section B that you got stuck on and give it a little more thought. Staring at a sentence you find difficult and don’t understand may be a waste of time and may cause you stress, so don’t stare at it for longer than a couple of minutes. If you’re really stuck that’s okay – the exam is designed to really test you and you can still score a top grade without understanding every line.
  5. Finally, if you have checked and double checked everything in the examination and are 100% sure that you have done your most accurate best, now is the time to consider answering the alternative optional question. Most students choose (or have been trained) to do the grammar questions and miss out the English into Latin. If you have spare time following all your checks there is no reason why you cannot answer the English to Latin questions as well: the examiner will mark both options and you will be awarded with whichever gains the highest mark. Remember, however, that this is the very last thing that you should do when you literally have nothing else to check, as it is always a potential waste of your time – you can’t be credited with marks for both options!

Always remember that a few marks here or there can make the ultimate difference between one grade and another. It’s a myth that examiners pool together the papers and re-examine those that are very close to the boundary – teachers do this during the mocks and did this during the pandemic. Examiners do not. It is a purely mathematical game of number-crunching and if you come out just one mark below the grade boundary then that’s how it is. So trawl through you answers and celebrate any mistakes that you find – it could just make the difference in the end.

Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

It’s never too late when it comes to the grammar questions

Have I mentioned that this month is busy? For a few days it seemed like every time I picked up my smartphone there was a new message from an anxious parent seeking last-minute support for their child. GCSE Latin may be somewhat niche, but it is still sat by thousands of students across the UK every year, and many of them are feeling uprepared.

Last week I wrote about how many of the students that have approached me are woefully ill-informed about how to go about the process of learning their set text. We are rapidly hurtling towards a time when fixing this within the available time-frame will be a real challenge. Despite this, some students who have approached me for help only recently are rising to it; but their lives could have been made so much less stressful had they been taught these techniques in the first place and tested on the text regularly.

In the last week, however, I have been approached by students presenting with concerns across the whole specification. While at this stage it is not realistic to promise a dramatic turnaround, there are things that can be done to improve a student’s grade at this late stage. Many students present with concerns about the language paper, quoting a grade 3/4 in this element and a grade 7 in the literature. They express surprise when I tell them that more work on the literature might actually help them the most. At this stage, improving a child’s grade is little more than a numbers game. For example, if I can teach them some techniques which will help them to gain full marks in the 10-mark question (which is worth 20% of their literature grade and therefore 10% of their mark overall) I can make a difference. Students who know the text well should be able to achieve a grade 8/9 in the literature papers, which will pull up their overall result, even without any improvement in their language grade.

So is there anything that can be done at this late stage to improve a child’s performance in the language paper? Well, with five weeks to go, there is little to be gained by delving in and analysing how much basic grammar is missing from a student’s knowledge bank – that can’t be fixed in five weeks, especially given the plethora of other subjects that students are studying at GCSE: it’s not like they can dedicate the majority of time to their Latin. More realitically I can focus on one element of the examination and improve their performance in that. The easiest win is the grammar questions, worth 10% and gloriously predicatable.


I teach students a series of rules and show them dozens of past and practice papers one after the other, focusing entirely on this question; as a result, students are able to identify how predicatable the examiner tends to be and at this stage that can really help. It also empowers them by enabling them to understand the language used in the questions and to identify what it is that the examiner is looking for.

Most students, in my experience, have not been prepared well for this question and there’s a reason for that. Grammar questions are a relatively new thing at GCSE level. They were introduced to the syllabus in 2018 and most teachers saw them as an entirely new phenomenon. But grammar questions have been a feature of the Common Entrance syllabus for decades and guess what? Some of the same people involved in setting those are also involved at GCSE. If anything, the GCSE questions are easier – I would place them at between Level 1 and Level 2 at Common Entrance – Level 3 grammar questions go way beyond the expectations at GCSE. As someone who has tutored the Common Entrance for years, the “new” grammar questions introduced in 2018 looked entirely familiar to me and I was immediately able to predict how they would work. In addition, Taylor & Cullen have published a series of practice papers in their books that accompany the OCR GCSE, as well as further practice with the grammar questions. Teachers now have a minimum of 10 practice, specimen and past papers to model for them how the questions work – and they are consistently repetitive.

The best way to prepare students for this element of the examination is to show them as many examples as you can in quick succession – select just this part of each paper and do one after the other. That way, students are able to spot how certain words, phrases and expectations are repeated time and time again. I usually find that within two half-hour sessions I can take a child from one who was previously mystified as to what to do and guessing wildly to one who is able to score 8, 9 or – on a good day with the wind behind them – 10 out of 10 consistently on the grammar questions.

Off you go and learn it

Time and again I am struck by how little guidance some students are given about how to go about the process of learning. I’m not talking about school assemblies on “study skills”, which I guarantee you most teenagers will switch off from; the guidance needs to come directly from each individual classroom teacher, the subject expert, and it needs to be explicitly taught, modelled and demonstrated on a regular basis. Schools need to agree what methods they are going to recommend and this needs to be reflected right across the school in all subjects, tailored specifically to what works best in each academic discipline.

Too often, it seems to me, students are still being told: here is your Latin set text, now off you go and learn the first section. I was guilty of this in my first few years of teaching – rote-learning comes relatively easy to me and I didn’t really comprehend that students need to be shown how to go about engaging with the process. Furthermore, I was working in a very high-achieving grammar school, where we were not really encouraged to support students proactively with their learning; it was assumed that all the students in the school could cope well in academia without such support.

When it comes to the literature element of the Latin GCSE, whether or not a student knows the translation of the set text off by heart and whether they can relate that knowledge to the the Latin version in front of them is without doubt the single most important differentiator between a student’s success and failure in the exam. Despite this inescapable fact, few Latin teachers appear willing to dedicate classroom time to the learning process, so wedded are they to the conviction that students can manage the learning “in their own time”. Many of my tutees have been told time and again that they “don’t know the text” well enough, that they “need to learn” it, that they need to “spend more time” on it, that generally they need to do something to gain the knowledge required. Yet when I ask them, “what methods have you practised in class?” they stare at me blankly. I have come to realise that most students are not being taught how to learn things off by heart, beyond the most rudimentary of introductions.

I am not naive. Having taught in secondary schools for 21 years, 13 of those years in a comprehensive setting, I am more than well aware of students’ uncanny ability to claim that they have “never been taught” something that they in fact have been told on more than one occasion. However, the extreme cluelessness of so many of my clients when it comes to what to do and their apparent awe when they are taught some very basic methods such as colour-coding and the first-letter technique do leave me increasingly convinced that many classroom teachers are not dedicating enough (or in some extreme cases any) classroom time to learning methodologies. I’ll bet most of them are doing what I used to do in my first few years of teaching – giving students a few bullet points of advice on how to go about learning the texts, then assuming that those students will remember this going forward. But why do we believe that? We would not (I hope) present them with the endings of the 1st declension in one lesson then assume that they will remember those endings for the rest of time – so why should that be the case when it comes to study skills?

One possible reason is teachers’ anxiety about time. One of the greatest strains that GCSE Latin teachers are under is time pressure. Very schools offer enough space on the timetable for our subject and I am fully aware that making it through both set texts within the time available is a mammoth task. I rarely finished the second set text prior to the end of March – on the few occasions that I managed to do so it was real cause for celebration. Yet despite this, as my career progressed I allocated an ever-increasing amount of classroom time to teaching students how to go about the learning process and also to giving them short bursts of learning time to actually get on with it in silence. Any spare few minutes that I found myself in possession of at the end of a new section or a new concept, I would allow them to bow their heads and spend 10 minutes using the first-letter technique to get a few sentences of the text under their belts. I wonder whether classroom teachers are afraid of allowing students this time, as if it somehow undermines the important of our teaching role. I used to remind students that I was painfully aware how much pressure I was putting them under, asking them to rote-learn a new chunk of text almost every single week. So part of the deal I made with them was that – whenever I could – I would let them have a few minutes of classroom time to kick-start the process.

The benefits of allocating this time are twofold. Firstly, it literally does get the children started on the process and is an opportunity to remind them once again of the methods that have been recommended: I used to put them up on a summary slide, even when they could all recite the methods without hesitation. Secondly, while students are studying, a teacher can circulate the room and check whether they are actually using the methods – there will always be a few hardcore reluctants who claim that the recommended methods “don’t work for them”. This is when a teacher needs to be strong. The evidence for what works and what doesn’t work in terms of how we learn is overwhelming, and unless that child can perform perfectly in every test you give them then they need to get on board with the methods!

As for what the methods should be, I recommend a variety but one is definitely stand-out brilliant and so far has worked for every student I have ever met. So if you haven’t read my previous post on how to use the first-letter technique then do so straight away – you will never look back!

Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash

Cambridge Latin Course 5th edition

Book 2: radical changes

Last week I reviewed the 5th edition of the Cambridge Latin Course Book 1. While the changes were notable, they were perhaps only apparent to someone who knows the course inside out. By contrast, the moment one opens the second book and compares it to its 4th edition predecessor, it is apparent that the changes here are far more radical. From the very first set of cartoons, the difference it striking.

Okay. Full disclosure from the outset: I don’t like Book 2. As a result, I’m afraid that this review is not going to be gushing. It is difficult enough to hold the attention of Year 9 (especially once they’ve chosen their options, which happens remarkably early in the academic year); with CLC Book 2, it was nigh on impossible and I have never felt so liberated as when I ditched it altogether. Yet the authors of the 5th edition have clearly made significant improvements to make the transition from the first to the second book is more palatable. To date, students have struggled to move on from the loss of Caecilius and other favourite characters, so the authors of the new edition have done the right thing in attempting to give Quintus more character in Book 1 and providing him with a new companion to accompany him on his travels. I retain my reservations about Book 2, even in its new format but, with such radical changes employed, it is undeniable that the authors have given it their best shot to adapt it.

The first stage of the book (Stage 13 in the series) has been radically altered. The lazy slave motifs of yesteryear are gone, and the opening cartoons demonstrate this from the outset. The monumentally dull opening story Tres Servi has been removed and replaced with a much better story entitled Romanus Vulneratus, which introduces us to Salvius in the distance, observed by a local farmer and his family. This is a much cleverer way to spark interest in the story Coniuratio which follows, and which we now hear as an explanation as to how the wealthy Roman Salvius came by his wound. I think the very idea of seeing these Roman characters through local eyes is excellent and a terrific approach taken by the authors throughout the new edition.

Rufilla is given a more dominant role, notable in the way the cartoons are presented and how the story of Bregans is shaped around her rather than Varica. The story is now divided into two parts, but still introduces the dog sent as a gift by King Togidubnus (renamed in line with updated research). A new character of Vitellianus is introduced and there is much better story-telling, with Rufilla noticing that her husband is wounded, and much less “Romanising”, with Bregans no longer being the stupid, lazy slave. The twins, Loquax and Anti-Loquax, are notable by their absence in this Stage. Salvius Fundum Inspicit has been renamed Fundus Britannicus, and once again this story has been adapted to reflect the viewpoint of local farmers living under the Roman occupation.

The order in which the grammar is introduced throughout Book 2 remains the same. For example, Stage 13 still introduces the verbs volo, nolo and possum used with the infinitive, and this grammatical point is rather better represented throughout the stories than it was before. I still ache for the lack of exercises provided; regretfully (and – as I undetstand it – deliberately) the CLC still relies heavily on the classroom teacher supplementing students’ studies. The authors have moved the practising the language exercises to the back of the book and added in extra comprehensions in every stage; given that the exercises require extensive vocabulary support, I do wonder whether the authors have considered just how much work the CLC demands of the clasroom teachers who work with it. When I think of the thousands of Latin teachers all over the country typing out hundreds of exercises on the most basic of grammatical principles, it makes me want to weep at the inefficiency. Changes have been made to the vocabulary checklists, largely (although not entirely) to better represent the list of words required at GCSE. I retain serious concerns about the vocabulary used outside of the checklists, which I shall come back to later.

The authors have decided to ditch the motif of Rufilla as the nagging, 1970s-style housewife, which is a great relief. She has an equally if not more dominant role in Stage 14 as before, but the row between her and Salvius, in which she was portrayed as fickle and spoilt, has been replaced with Familia Occupata, in which her focus is preparing the guest bedroom – a much better way to build anticipation about who that guest might be. The household slaves are also much better represented throughout Stage 14 in the build up to Quintus Advenit, now renamed Familiaris Advenit to allow students to discover the guest’s identity for themselves as they translate. The story of the silver tripods remains, followed by a new story for comprehension, which once again replaces the exercises now moved to the back of the book. This certainly cements the “reading course” approach – to those of us unconvinced by that philosophy, I fear it is another nail in the coffin for the CLC. Many teachers, however, will be very pleased to see some beginners’ level literary criticism brought in – I am aware that some schools take this approach with the CLC already and it seems the team has taken it on board.

It is notable that the background sections, which continue to exploit the idea of the characters appearing as talking heads, are now spread out more widely throughout some of the stages, meaning that teachers are perhaps more likely to weave the background material into their lessons as originally intended by the philosophy of the CLC. Women are better represented (i.e. they are represented full stop) and there is a pleasing exploration as to why we know so little about them and indeed about anyone who was not rich, male and powerful. I will not explore and discuss the changes to the background in depth because – like many state-school teachers, I had no time for them anyway and therefore lack the expertise. Suffice to say it is clear that the changes are radical, thorough and for the better, so schools with the time to explore them in depth will have much better quality material to work with.

The changes to the stories in Stage 15 appear less radical and therefore what’s most noticeable is once again the practising the language being a comprehension rather than exercises, which have again been moved to the back of the book. There is a welcome change to the cartoons at the start of Stage 16, which previously had the most extraordinary representation of enslaved people with dwarfism, randomly juggling for the entertainment of some dinner guests. While it is absolutely undeniable that the Romans did this kind of thing, to make this image the only representation of disability within the pages of the CLC and drop it in without comment was frankly appalling and something that I am very glad to see the back of. These unfortunate (and nameless) characters have been replaced with the previously absent twins, named in previous editions as Loquax and Anti-Loquax, who make an appearance here although are not named. In the same set of cartoons the authors have also removed the bizarre and frankly distracting moment when a dancing girl appears out of an enormous egg and have replaced her with some birds. Below is the image as it appears in the 4th edition followed by its replacement in the 5th.

I was pleased to see Quintus De Se still in place, as this is a pivotal and grammatically useful story, where Quintus articulates his trauma and which I used to use in an adapted form to test students on verb endings. The story has some pleasing tweaks, incorporating the fate of Lucia, Quintus’s sister, and explaining how Clemens found the two siblings after some time and gave Quintus the ring handed to him by Caecilius at the end of Stage 12 (which to my recollection was never mentioned again in previous editions).

But Stages 15 and 16 in general are the point where the CLC starts to go a bit wild, in my opinion. To my dismay, the authors have chosen to keep the storyline about Belimicus, the tedious boat race and the bear – in my experience, children honestly do not find these stories even half as exciting as the authors seem to think they are, but maybe other teachers have found differently. And yes, of course, I used to throw myself into it, get the children to act out the stories, draw diagrams of the race, label what happened at each point, you name it, I did it. We were all doing it back in 2010. Some teachers are still doing it. What an epic waste of class time! Let’s focus on the language: in my experience, by this point in the course, the amount of unusual vocabulary weighs so heavily upon students that they find themselves endlessly frustrated by the translation process and therefore lose heart with it. My concerns in this regard are perpetuated in this new edition, where the authors have elected to continue to use relatively unusual vocabulary to introduce and demonstrate core grammar. As just one example, the sentence which demonstrates the pluperfect in Stage 16 is constructed almost entirely out of words which do not appear on either of the GCSE specifications, nor in Dickinson’s One Thousand: artifices, qui picturas pinxerant, peritissimi erant. Other than the verb to be and the relative pronoun, these words are frankly irrelevant and I think it’s madness, given the depth of the overhaul that this course has undergone, that the authors haven’t taken the opportunity to resolve this issue. I suspect it is because they genuinely don’t see the excessive amount of unusual vocabulary as an issue to the extent that I have found it to be in the classroom.

Stages 17-20 remain, as in prior editions, a flashback to Quintus’s time in Alexandria, with the notable change that his sister Lucia, introduced in the new 5th edition of Book 1, is also a survivor and therefore joins Quintus on his travels. An extra story in Stage 17 entitled Tres Aves focuses on her and makes further pleasing mention of the siblings’ losses in Pompeii – in previous editions, there wasn’t enough opportunity taken to make links for the characters with their past, so this is really good to see – the course and its narrative certainly feels more coherent now. Stage 18 retains its focus on Clemens, his Alexandrian shop and the protection racketeering and Stage 19 still introduces the characters of Aristo, Galatea and Helena – mention is now made in the cartoons that they are friends of Barbillus, which goes some considerable way towards maintaining the thread of the storyline better than in previous editions. Lucia is also woven into the stories of Stage 19, with this being the focus in a total re-write of Dies Festus. The story of the hen-pecked Aristo has – mercifully – been removed and we are then into endgame, with the story Venatio depicting the scenario which will finish off Barbillus, who has thus been much better woven into the extended narrative throughout Book 1 and Book 2. Barbillus’s demise seems much more poignant, not just because he has been better painted as a character and friend of the family, but because his will is represented nicely in the book and the relationship between him and the siblings Quintus and Lucia is much more explicitly drawn.

While the storyline hangs together really well and the narrative is undeniably entertaining, I maintain that the vocabulary of Book 2 is overwhelming for students and that this burden will continue to cause them to lose interest, both in the narrative and in the language itself. Were I still a classroom teacher I do not believe that I would have re-embraced the use of Book 2, solely due to this fact. While Book 1 requires heavy supplementation, this is just about manageable and definitely worth doing. But when I found myself glossing virtually every single word in a lengthy story – as I did for Book 2 – and when those words are, on the whole, not useful for GCSE, I had to ask myself what purpose the book was serving. My professional judgement that Book 2 was not serving my needs as a time-pressed classroom teacher sadly remains the same having examined the 5th edition: the authors simply haven’t addressed the core reasons behind why I ditched it in the first place. Others will feel very differently of course, and I suspect that ardent fans of the course will be delighted with the changes.

I was always going to be a tough audience, with my fundamental dislike for Book 2 and my sincere belief that it is pretty much irreconcilable with the needs of the classroom teacher, particularly in a comprehensive setting. I remain convinced that the CLC and its usefulness starts to crumble beyond repair at this point. The passages are packed with too much difficult, irrelevant and overwhelming vocabulary and – perhaps most crucially of all – far too much relies on the classroom teacher to produce countless supplementary worksheets; the requirement to do this is so onerous that one is left wondering why one would invest in these expensive text books at all, when they fail so fundamentally to provide the core content of a Latin course.