Necessity is the mother of invention, or so they say. And in this situation, I NEEDED something to save my students from burnout, save class time from being miserable, and make Latin less of a strain for all involved. So I sat down and started writing my own study guide. I did one lesson first. Lesson 24, to be specific. I printed out copies and I brought it to class. The first week, we worked through it together so they could understand how it worked. Then I began writing one lesson at a time and bringing it to class a week ahead so they could use it at home that week.
The study guide had many purposes:
- Students who really didn’t understand Latin at all could at least feel like they were doing SOMETHING.
- All students could participate in class because even if they couldn’t understand the exercises anymore, they could still copy the rules and answer the questions about the reading assignments (the grammar)
- The students who were strong in Latin could review and slow down to even better grasp the new concepts from each lesson
- As a director, I no longer had to stress about what to do to fill an hour of class time. We opened up the study guide and orally went through each question. And because all the students now knew what I was going to expect in class, they were more prepared to participate. In fact, we jumped from almost no participation to 100%. Latin became the EASIEST hour of community day.
Over the course of the year, I continued to write study guides for each lesson, eventually going back to the beginning and writing them for lessons 1 through 23 as well.
My students helped me edit–there is nothing teenagers like more than telling an adult when she’s wrong! They found mistakes and they had ideas for making it flow better. We’ve tested it out in our classroom and now I’m ready to share it with the world! At the moment, my First Year Henle Latin Study Guides are available in my Etsy shop. It’s not the ideal place for them but until I set up a different online shop for this blog, that is where they’ve landed.
First, if you’d like a free sample, click here to download Lesson 1. If you decide this seems like something that would work for your Latin student or your Latin class, head on over to my Etsy shop and check out:
Latin Study Guide for First Year Henle Lessons 1 through 15 (For Challenge A, and for review in Challenge B and I)
Latin Study Guide for First Year Henle Lessons 16 through 29 (For Challenge B, and for review in Challenge I)
Latin Study Guide for First Year Henle Lessons 30 through 42 (For Challenge I)
Or, buy them all at once and print lessons as they are needed (and save a little money in the process):
Latin Study Guide for First Year Henle Lessons 1 through 42
Latin Study Guide for Second Year Henle Latin (All Lessons) (For Challenge II)
This is a digital download. You will need to print it yourself. If you are a director, you may print copies for all your students but I ask that you please not share the digital file with your families.