When Pictures Aren't Worth a Thousand Words

    

Pictures are not always worth a thousand words, and these pictures prove it.  What do you see?  Maybe this looks like a traditional classroom, and you are thinking there is nothing special here.  Perhaps you look a bit closer and spot paired or group work.

You are not wrong in your observations, but these pictures are far from telling the whole story.  We are now in our second week of school, and these are Latin I students.  Most of them do not know each other, or at least not well.  Yet as you can see, they are figuring out how to work together.

But you are still missing the key piece here, the sound.  I wish you could have been in these two classes.  The room was buzzing, not with off-task chatter, but with meaningful discussion as partners discussed how to render Latin sentences into English.  We had discussed the basic grammar, but there were aspects we had not yet covered.  As I walked around and made myself available for questions, I could not help being impressed by the level of engagement and collaboration among these students.  I was so impressed, I had to take a few pictures.  Unfortunately, those pictures only capture a fraction of the true vitality coursing through our room