Our summative project for the year is making a movie.
No, seriously.
Putting together all the various grammatical bits with the cultural theme of Teutoburg, the students are putting together a short play, about 10-15 minutes long ideally, portraying the final evening before the Roman legions of Magna Germania, under provincial governor Varus, took a shortcut back over the Rhine as suggested by the German tribal chieftan Arminius, only for it to end with the combined forces of all the local tribes decimating all 3 legions. This is also known as, "The reason German isn't a Latinate language."
The scene in question is basically Arminius and his entourage convincing Varus and his Generals to take his advice, despite the fact that some other tribal bigwigs, like Arminius' rival Segestes, were practically yelling in Varus' ear that the whole thing was an obvious trap.
We spent yesterday developing an outline of the script and dividing up the various roles. So far, it looks like it'll be fun, if not particularly historically accurate (I had to help translate, "Come at me bro!"). Next week will be spent finishing up the script and practicing so that we can record the play on 10 May.
The homework is to finish translating any lines originally written in English. Also, if your kids could bring either white sheets (for togas) or fuzzy towels/bathrobes (for bear-skin robes) the next two weeks to serve as costumes, that'd be much appreciated.
Mit Vergnügen
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Saturday, April 12, 2014
12.April '14 - KRIEG
Guten Abend,
Today we fought a terrible battle, and much fun was had by all.
Playing off last week whereupon we built Legionnaires, this week we made our own Teutonic warriors and made both of the above groups engage in combat.
We reviewed and added onto our vocabulary regarding parts of the body, and armor, weaponry and clothing of the 1st century AD in Roman - occupied Germania, as well as martial details, and then divided into two groups: one for Deutscher, one for Römer. Using a point system assigned to different actions, and with "hitpoints" assigned to each warrior or legionnaire that the class had made, based on their equipment and armor, we held battle on the board.
Each team called out an action (which had to be correctly said for it to count--conjugated, arranged, and using the right cases) against certain targets (hence the body part vocabulary last week) and those targets lost hit points accordingly.
The first round, 3 Romans against 6 Germans, the Germans won. Second round, 3 Romans +1 German Auxiliary versus 5 Germans was a wash.
A typical fight looked like this:
Team Rome: "Julius schlägt Sven in das Bein mit dem Schild"
Me: "-3 für Sven. Er hat nur noch 3 HP."
Team Germania: "Sven zerhaut Julius in den Kopf!"
Me: "-4 für Julius. Er hat nur noch 6 HP."
And so on...
It was basically Pokemon with historically-decorated figurines. Since they knew we were going to battle with our figures from the outset, the amount of practicality that went into their design was extraordinary, e.g. "better give him a shield so he gets +1 HP" and so on.
Now that we have had our battle, the classroom walls are adorned with the figures, should you wish to see them. They are quite lovely.
There is no school next week--It's Osterfeier.
Mit Vergnügen
Today we fought a terrible battle, and much fun was had by all.
Playing off last week whereupon we built Legionnaires, this week we made our own Teutonic warriors and made both of the above groups engage in combat.
We reviewed and added onto our vocabulary regarding parts of the body, and armor, weaponry and clothing of the 1st century AD in Roman - occupied Germania, as well as martial details, and then divided into two groups: one for Deutscher, one for Römer. Using a point system assigned to different actions, and with "hitpoints" assigned to each warrior or legionnaire that the class had made, based on their equipment and armor, we held battle on the board.
Each team called out an action (which had to be correctly said for it to count--conjugated, arranged, and using the right cases) against certain targets (hence the body part vocabulary last week) and those targets lost hit points accordingly.
The first round, 3 Romans against 6 Germans, the Germans won. Second round, 3 Romans +1 German Auxiliary versus 5 Germans was a wash.
A typical fight looked like this:
Team Rome: "Julius schlägt Sven in das Bein mit dem Schild"
Me: "-3 für Sven. Er hat nur noch 3 HP."
Team Germania: "Sven zerhaut Julius in den Kopf!"
Me: "-4 für Julius. Er hat nur noch 6 HP."
And so on...
It was basically Pokemon with historically-decorated figurines. Since they knew we were going to battle with our figures from the outset, the amount of practicality that went into their design was extraordinary, e.g. "better give him a shield so he gets +1 HP" and so on.
Now that we have had our battle, the classroom walls are adorned with the figures, should you wish to see them. They are quite lovely.
There is no school next week--It's Osterfeier.
Mit Vergnügen
Saturday, April 5, 2014
5.April - Gut und Gerüstet
Guten Tag!
It's been a while, what with trips out of the country followed soon after by two consecutive weekends off for Spring Break! Welcome back to German school.
Today we learned vocabulary for the parts of the body, and also Imperial Roman armor. Not kidding. We used both sets of vocabulary to fill in diagrams of a person and a legionnaire, and then we used paper people cut-outs along with tons of felt, pipe cleaner, glitter, balsa wood, posterboard, glue, tape, and acrylic markers to decorate the cutouts like legionnaires. We now have legionnaires hanging on the wall, complete with gladii (swords), spathae (spears) and shields. Come around and see them sometime!
As the year draws to a close, I intend to explore some of the more obscure and interesting angles of our historical theme, so you can expect the arts and crafts to continue.
The homework is quite simple:
In 5 sentences or more, write a short argument auf Deutsch about which you think was the better legionary weapon: the sword or the spear, and why. Think about it in the context of Teutoburg and how/why the Roman's lost that battle to the Germanic tribes.
It's been a while, what with trips out of the country followed soon after by two consecutive weekends off for Spring Break! Welcome back to German school.
Today we learned vocabulary for the parts of the body, and also Imperial Roman armor. Not kidding. We used both sets of vocabulary to fill in diagrams of a person and a legionnaire, and then we used paper people cut-outs along with tons of felt, pipe cleaner, glitter, balsa wood, posterboard, glue, tape, and acrylic markers to decorate the cutouts like legionnaires. We now have legionnaires hanging on the wall, complete with gladii (swords), spathae (spears) and shields. Come around and see them sometime!
As the year draws to a close, I intend to explore some of the more obscure and interesting angles of our historical theme, so you can expect the arts and crafts to continue.
The homework is quite simple:
In 5 sentences or more, write a short argument auf Deutsch about which you think was the better legionary weapon: the sword or the spear, and why. Think about it in the context of Teutoburg and how/why the Roman's lost that battle to the Germanic tribes.
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