Monday, September 15, 2008

Week three....yes, time flies!

Just to make sure that everyone is aware....I have gleefully stolen (with permission), Heather's hard work on this post. I would typically just tell you to go to her blog and get the information yourself, but since I know many of you are afraid of this new blogging venture of mine, I am spoon feeding it to you.
If you have NOT gone to her blog...Sanctified Woman...it is beautiful - eye candy, really, and I highly recommend it. Why should I bother to type any thing up when perfection is just a copy/paste away. :) Heather is the main lady (under Leigh, of course) that spent hundreds of hours perfecting your EEL manual.
Don't worry, Heather, I won't dare do this every week. Just long enough for them to get the hanging of linking over to you. xoxo

Week 3 - On Location with Nouns and Pronouns

This week we have yet another discovery to dig into... Pull out your trusty field guide (EEL Guide) and review week 3's lesson information. (Still trying to figure out your field guide? Help is here!) This week is loaded with all sorts of information concerning nouns and pronouns and the central roles they play in sentences.

Orderly Connections! In English, the location of a noun in relationship to other words in a sentence dictates that noun's role (subject, direct object, indirect object, possessive, and object of the preposition). In Latin, it is not the location of the noun but rather the noun ending that tells you the role the noun is playing in a sentence. Therefore in Latin sentences words can be in any order!

Week 3 also introduces EEL Analytical Task 3. If this is your first time to look at this information Embarrassed, allow yourself to digest small pieces of information at a time. We will be reviewing and discussing nouns and pronouns for several weeks, so be patient with yourself. Refer to page A3 and A36 to see an overview schedule for the year - keep this framework in mind, there is a lot of review built in.

Remember EEL Task 1 is simply loading the grammar. Putting in the data, vocabulary, lists, etc... into the brain for later retrieval and application. EEL Task 1 points you to Appendices B and C for our grammar. This week add the student mastery charts on nouns and pronouns from Appendix C to your student's studies and weekly memory work.

Have your own laser printer at home? Want to print grammar pages on demand? EEL Appendix B and C download link ($15).

EEL-Week-#3-NounsandPronoun

EEL Task 2 is simple dictation and checking sentence mechanics of spelling, capitalization and punctuation. This is a simple task and results in students who edit their work more effectively and pay closer attention to writing syntax details. So work on establishing the discipline of dictation in your home. Just a few minutes a day. We pick sentences from the EEL Guide, the Dictation Resource, but also from our favorite readers and scripture passages. This year since we are spending so much time in John chapter 1 in the Foundations program, I will spend time applying the EEL Tasks to this passage. To practice some of the editing skills of EEL Task 2, I'll throw in some editing pages (from the EEL Guide Editing Exercises, like p47, or some variation of it). Interesting to note that all the EEL Editing Exercises are from the book of John, specifically from the first four chapters.

Now on to EEL Task 3 Question Confirmation! Refer to Appendix A (pp A10-A12) of your field guide to get the big picture of this task's purpose. This task is a truly dialectic task, meaning you and your student dialogue using a series of questions. This process of dialogue and thinking aids in the discovery of a word's role and/or part of speech in a particular sentence.

This leads me very nicely into our magical Teacher Sheets! (see below but see A21 in your field guide for a legible Teacher Sheet sample) Some have even called these sheets Cheater Sheets because they contain the work, script and answers in order to teach us, the parent and student, this powerful analytical process! These instructional sheets begin this week (see p50 for the first official Teacher Sheet). They walk you step-by-step through EEL Tasks 1-6 for one sentence, providing the appropriate answers, examples and yes, even verbal scripts!

EELTeacherSheetExplanation

Secret tellingTeacher Sheets make us look and feel smart until we actually are Wink.

New students and parents should feel free to stick only with Task 1-3. Returning students and parents should do as much as they can! You'll be amazed by the end of the year at the ease in which students can parse, diagram, modify and perform basic Quid et Quo on every word in a sentence.

A man has joy in an apt answer,

and how delightful is a timely word!

Proverbs 15:23