Certamen: Student Legions Learn Latin
About eight years ago, Ms. Hayley Sampson faced a difficult challenge with her Latin 3 class. While translating Julius Caesar’s De Bello Gallico, it was clear students were bored and disengaged with learning. They had reached their limits with the daily translation of Roman battle descriptions.
Ms. Sampson decided a radical change was necessary, so she designed a new semester-long project called certamen (Latin for “contest”). Over the course of four months in second semester, students teamed up in legions and participated in various competitions with a running score preserved in front of the room. The groups were formed based on Semester 1 final exam results. Ms. Sampson listed all students in order of their scores and drafted them into legions (like fantasy football). Their rankings were based on raw ability from sight multiple choice questions (with no opportunity for preparation). Students were given a ‘rank’ that allowed them to compete against others of their ability: centurion, rookie, veteran, or aquilifer.
Project Launch
On the first day of the semester, students received an identity sheet with their Roman name, rank, and backstory. They learned about the requirements to be a Roman soldier and pledging the Roman Sacramentum. For the purposes of the project, Ms. Sampson played the role of Caesar.
Click here to view a video clip from the first day of the project.
Learning Through Competition
Each competition during the semester was framed and aligned with the content of the story to help students learn and retain the historical plot. The skills required for each competitive task corresponded with the events of the story. Activities involved a variety of modalities: kinesthetic, artistic, problem solving, reading comprehension. Some activities were timed and some were not. In addition to learning Latin, history, and culture, students also developed social emotional skills through teamwork and collaboration. Competition can be tough and sometimes resulted in conflict between and among the groups.
The lesson below is aj example competition from midway through the project--approximately six weeks since the first day of the semester. Students are covering section five of De Bello Gallico (“Attack on the Winter Camp”). The lesson included four main segments:
1. Pronoun Pandemonium
2. Build a catapult
3. Bull’s eye with questions
4. Pugna (“fight”) Pro Legione Quiz
Click here to view a short video sequence from each of these lesson segments.
Student Perspective
Interviews with students confirmed the project has helped them not only master the language but also develop skills for productive collaboration.
I: How has the Certamen project supported your learning of Latin?
MB: At the end of the class we take the Pugna quizzes. Ms. Sampson takes specific parts of the translation and we are quizzed on it. She wants us to be able to match the last half of it into English. It helps a lot. Because...like the one with the pronouns...some of them are reinforcing parts you already learned and other times it’s extra practice. So it’s been helpful.
RS: I think definitely this year I’m gaining more knowledge on translating since Latin II and I. Coming into this year I was hesitant...so I definitely became a better translator this year. I think it’s through practice and repetition. And it’s really nice when the homework is video notes, because we get feedback and she can see where we are, and give us notes to work on whatever it is having to do with translating. So I have definitely grown this year and I think part of it is how she structures the class...by translating with other classmates I’ve definitely been able to see the way they go about it.
I: What are some specific activities that have helped you learn?
MB: For our last assignment we did chunks of a translation and in class we had an activity where the soldiers are carrying baggage. We have to annotate the text with the correct subject and verb. You have to put it in piles, practice using your skills with translation, and also understand the different participles or declensions of all the different verbs.
RS: Recently, the last pugna we did...we did class cahoot which was putting all of the events in order. I really like that because it was team building and we all had to work together. Half of it was Latin and half was English, so it was training our minds to switch back and forth. I also really like the ones that incorporate Latin and History.
I: What assigned role do you play in your group?
MB: I’m the centurion. So that’s the leader of the legion. In our group, I’m normally the one who does a lot of the translation work.
RS: I’m the aquilifer, so I’m the middle person. She picks our groups based on our finals in last semester and all of our legions are really fair. Each legion also has a different strength.
I: How does each team member contribute to the project goals and competition?
MB: It helps because the way she does the groups. It benefits all of us because we’ve developed a system. For the Latin-based Certamen, one member looks up words and declensions, another member figures out where it fits in context, and I’ll group everything together.
RS: Sometimes before the games or activities, she will give us three minutes to discuss how you’re going to go about this activity. So one example is when we were making the catapult, two of us got everything sorted and ready and then Luke would put it together. Another is that we always check each other because we think accuracy is more important...We are better at games that take more time.
I: How has the project affected your motivation to study and learn Latin?
MB: We have a lot of motivation to do well because at the end of the semester, depending on how you place, you have different length of research paper. Also, the Certamen day is a lot of work but in a different way. It’s a nice brain break but it’s all related to Latin. The Simon Says is word order and the Bingo is vocab, so it’s all related to Latin. If we didn’t have this project it would probably be more painstaking.
RS: I think not only is it fun in general to be competitive and try your hardest, but also because we know if we work well we won’t have as much to write for the final project. I think by having it as a game...the competitiveness pushes me to want to study even more. I like how the pugna quizzes are just purely for your team and not a grade, because I think it shows that I can work hard for myself and my team and the grade is not what’s driving my motivation. I think how she structures the pugna quizzes and also the tribe quizzes is a really nice balance.
I: Is there anything else from this project that you think is important that I haven’t asked you about?
MB: I think Ms. Sampson does a great job of making it a class that is not boring. We are moving fast and it’s very consistent. We can always expect the same stuff and we are getting better at knowing what to look out for. I think I’ve improved my translation skills because of it...and just my thinking.
RS: I’ve really learned through this unit and how she structured it, not only Latin, but figuring out how to be organized and how to work with other people. I’m learning a lot about history and Roman culture...I’ve learned how to work with teammates and how to stay organized, and also time management, because a lot of the tasks are timed, so how to work quickly, smartly, but stay under the time limit...I haven’t ever had a class structured this way. I like that every day there is something new. I always look forward to Latin class. Ms. Sampson always tries to improve her teaching skills and the different activities we do.
Project Reflections
The structure of the project allowed students to showcase a variety of academic strengths and skills rather than relying exclusively on traditional “book knowledge.” Placing students students in groups and creating a collaborative environment enabled lower and mid-level students to benefit from higher level students knowledge and abilities. At the same time, higher level students also benefited from teaching and explaining Latin to their peers as well as engaging in direct competition with students in other groups who shared the same legion rank.
The competitive nature of the project and creative design of activities helped foster the motivation needed for advanced students to engage in reading and translation of complex texts. Post-lesson discussion sometimes resembled a post-game breakdown as they analyzed what happened and what influenced the final outcome.
Ms. Sampson provided a variety of incentives including points for daily classwork. This encouraged students to keep working even if they knew they weren’t going to win. Competition and activity inspired students to participate and study the text, but she balanced that competition with the consistent message: “Learning is more important than winning.”