25.Januar '14 - Die Teutoburgerschlacht

The day began like any other day: we went over the homework as a class, moving problem by problem through the dark and mysterious streets of grammar, unsuspecting of the horrifying events that awaited on the horizon.
We then had a lesson over strong versus weak verbs (how to know what form a verb takes as a past participle) accompanied by a handout for the students to keep for future reference.

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, came ANOTHER EXERCISE only this one was listening-comprehension, something I have given to classes almost daily in years past but that we did for the first time this year today. We went through a listening comprehension (Hörverständnis) exercise with the song, "Mein Herz Brennt" by Rammstein.


After lunch and our Ruhepause, we did something about which I had been crossing my proverbial fingers, hoping it would work, and lo and behold! It actually went quite well and wasn't too hard for the class, much to my relief. I prepared a handout to-be-read in pairs. It was excerpts taken from this article:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-ambush-that-changed-history-72636736/
I prepared a word bank with the key figures and locations, and then they read the abridged article, underlining key points (Hauptthemen) for later discussion. Even though they may not have understood every word ('aforementioned' and 'foreordained' were commonly greeted with, "huh?"), each group found the key points and main ideas and managed to summarize them afterward rather well.

We then held a whole-class discussion over the Teutoburgerschlacht, and how this single event in the 1st century AD redefined the course of history for Germany, and even all of Europe. The Battle of Teutoburg is, I've found, never even mentioned in most school curricula, even though it is easily the most pivotal point in all of Germany's history. Without this battle, German would be a romance language like French, Spanish, Italian, and even to an extent English (with lots of latinate roots).
Also, the students got to learn such concepts as "guerilla warfare" and "cultural assimilation."

And now, the homework:

Next week, we shall do further exercises on the worksheet that was turned in today. This week, the homework is to write a one-page long 1st person account of the Teutoburgerschlacht. Students take the role of a witness to the event, either a Roman legionnaire or a Teutonic skirmisher under Arminius. They should, using the 1st-person (ich) past tense, recount:

• What they saw
• What they thought during the event
• What they did
• In short, what happened around them

I will accept a minimum of 20 sentences, but it may be more, up to a whole page (please not much longer! I have to read these!)

Also, I sent the Zeugnisse (report cards) home today. Please have those brought back, signed, next weekend.

~Mit Vergnügen