General Syllabus: High School Latin 4

2008-09 School Year

Instructor: Dave Spotts	IM or Talk: spottsinator@gmail.com
Office Hours: TBA	Skype: MrSpotts

PREREQUISITES:

Completion of High School Latin 3 or equivalent as assessed by TPS instructor.

DESCRIPTOR: High School Latin 4 reviews various areas of Roman imperial culture, history, art, and politics as students read a variety of Latin works without editorial emendations.

TEXTS: Students in Latin 3 will need H.H. Orberg’s Roma Aeterna, 2003, ISBN 87-997016-8-5, along with a Latin-English dictionary of their choice.

Between Classes: Students will have a passage of their main text to read and understand. They will also have one or more exercises available to them, reviewing the grammar and vocabulary used in the reading assignment. You can expect TPS Latin classes to take high school students about 90 minutes a day, five days a week, outside of class time.

During Classes: Students are to arrive punctually with their equipment in good working order. Without a working microphone it will be very difficult, if not impossible, for the student to participate adequately in class. This is a course involving a great deal of material to cover each day in class. Everybody’s preparation and cooperation is necessary to make this a good course for everyone. Students are not to engage in off-topic chat in the classroom. In each class session, the instructor will have a review of material assigned for class, answering questions from students and asking students questions so as to assess their progress. Then the instructor will introduce and illustrate new material as needed for the upcoming week's assignment. Participation is mandatory in order to do well. Students who are absent without a parental excuse or who do not to participate according to teacher expectations will not receive good participation scores. Daily preparation scores cannot be made up.

Quizzes: There will be a quiz at the end of each chapter, as well as pop quizzes at various times throughout the year. Late quizzes without a parent request prior to the quiz due date will have a 10% grade deduction until they are 24 hours late. Items 24-48 hours late will have a 20% deduction. Items over 48 hours late will receive a zero. There may be a final quiz due in the week after the last class meeting.

Grading: While the parent is responsible for preparing student transcripts, for purposes of this class the instructor will count evidence of student preparedness, including homework scores and class interaction as 40% of the grade, quizzes as 60% of the grade. Cut-offs are as follows: 90% A, 80% B, 70% C, 65% or below F. I would like to set students up for success. I wish to follow progress on a weekly basis, allowing me to zero in quickly on areas of student difficulty. I think the exercises combined with in-class interaction facilitates this wonderfully. In any study of foreign language, consistency is a key to success. Parents are responsible to follow-up with the instructor if they have reason to believe there is anything in error in the gradebook, including scores reported but not posted. Please retain evidence of submission of and scores on all assignments until they have posted in the gradebook.