Adaptation: Horace's Epode 3 on garlic and witches

Introduction

I originally started working with this poem as part of a Latin III story for October in 2017. There were some new things I wanted to try out and I love talking about different kinds of witches and surprising cultural facts. This poem features garlic and it's "nocens" attributes. My IIIs enjoyed the poem and our discussion that followed and so I've kept in my back pocket for when another time would arise and it could be useful. Enter 2021 :). In wanting to do some scary stories, my Latin I colleagues and I each chose a story for this most wonderful time of the year and I pulled this poem out! What follows in this post is a section on how I taught it for Latin III and resources and how I'm teaching it with Latin I and resources. Enjoy! Unless otherwise listed, work is my own. 

Canidia, Medea, and Latin III

If you haven't read the original of this poem, you can do so here with my translation, plus a traditional translation below it (retrieved from the Perseus Project). When considering this for my Latin IIIs, I considered a few different things:

• length
• vocabulary familiarity
• Grammar familiarity

My Latin  IIIs had started requesting explicit grammar, so I always looked at my texts to see if I could incorporate more of what they knew so they could see it and practise with it. 

Ultimately I think you can see the most adaptation in the length and vocabulary. We didn't have long with this sidebar from our unit, so over the course of three days, we did a few activities with this work:

Days 1-2
Activity: Adapted Chain Reaction
​​I pulled the original idea of Chain Reaction from Martina Bex. I adapted it from a conversational practice to a dictation followed by the building of a story. 
Process Day 1

1. I read each sentence to students in Latin twice. They wrote down what they heard. Students were told that this dictation did NOT build a story.
2. I then projected each sentence and students and I worked to translate them together. 
3. After all the sentences were translated, students were given the task to, in groups, put the sentences in an order that made sense to them, building their own story. 

Process Day 2

1. After quickly reviewing the sentences and what they mean...
2. We look at each group's story and determine what kind of story is being told. Students really enjoyed this because it allowed for a wide variety of stories!

​Day 3 (4 if needed)
Activity: Read and Discuss in English

1. Students work individually on reading the poem again, in Latin with cultural notes, and ensuring they understand each line.
   
2.  Students then get to create their own version of the poem a second time, without groups. 
3. Students then answer the discussion questions on the second page based on Horace's original poem. 

If I had time, we then discussed these questions together. This gave us a chance to discuss the grammar, rhetorical devices, and imagery invoked in the poem. 

Latin I vs. Horace

I used "vs." here... not because it's a battle, but because most high school students won't see Horace at all. I readily admit that when I originally looked at this poem for Latin III years ago, I was scared. When I studied Horace in grad school I felt like... every time I started to get him as an author, he'd just laugh at me. The second time around, I felt better. I had already done the back work: I'd translated the poem, I'd compared my work against a published work, I had already adapted it once. 

This lesson was part of three stories that my colleagues and I chose for the October season. We decided to include a codeswitched passage for each story and do that on Day 1. We also paired this with a Blooket game made up of words students said they needed more practice with. 

​Day 1
Activity: Blooket, codeswitched passage

1. Warm up with Blooket. Play for as long as you are comfortable. We played for 7-10 minutes
2. Project Code Switched Passage and give a copy to students.
3. Students read silently and mark all the Latin words with one of two markers/pens/highlighters
   1. one colour for words they are confident they know or can figure out
   2. one colour for words they have no clue about
4. Students get a minute or two to work with a partner on those difficult words. 
5. Introduce the three  kinds of witches.
6. As a class we go over the story, making sure students understand the new Latin words and the poem

​Day 2
​Activity: Read and Discuss in Latin/English

1. Warm up - students re-read the codeswitched passage. 
2. Read passage with students
   1. PPT version*
   2. Text
3. On each slide, consider:
   1. reading aloud to students
   2. Pausing for "quid significat" questions
   3. Asking students comprehension questions in Latin.
   4. Asking students comprehension questions in English. 
   5. Discussing various culture topics.

** Pictures were found on Ecosia search. If this is your picture and you'd like me to remove it, please send me an email. 

Things I discussed with Latin 1 students:

• ​types of witches in ancient Rome and connections to contemporary society
• the story of Medea (I left Canidia out as we'll be reading more about her later this week)
• What kind of witch Canidia and Medea are (particularly Medea).
• Connections between this poem and the saying that on first dates you shouldn't eat garlic
• Poisonous plants