I wrote last year about the spin on the Dictatio: the Pictatio. This year, as I’m sure it is for all of you, school just looks different. Everything is different just about everywhere, and it’s not going to look normal anytime soon. So, a pictatio should look a little different too. And it ever so slightly does! Behold: The asynchronous pictatio!
At my school, electives are taught asynchronously, so we are creating curricular materials that, well, are asynchronous. I had the idea last week that it was time to reuse the pictatio for our unit on clothing that is segueing into body parts and monsters. I found out this week that an asynchronous pictatio work really well for instruction (and the kids still liked them!).
No Pressure Refresher: What is a Pictatio?
A Pictatio is an activity that assesses listening comprehension. When teaching in person, you read a short reading to students about three times and wander around the room to see what students draw. When teaching asynchronously, students hear a recording of a story. In either situation, students draw what they hear.
When learning asynchronously, students have more control over how many times they listen to the story. I set a guideline of listening at least two times but that more would be helpful. Students should replay the video as many times as they need to in order to add details to their drawings.
The asynchronous pictatio is a fantastic activity for virtual teaching and for listening comprehension. You write a short story, record it, and have students draw it. As I did last year, I learned a lot about what my students understood and didn’t understand by what they included in their pictures they submitted.
You can follow-up this asynchronous activity with a synchronous discussion. You could do a picture talk with some of the pictures students submitted, compare pictures, and do a choral reading of the written story. Kids like drawing, and this is a nice formative assessment to check for understanding. When I’ve done a pictatio in person, I would pick up a student’s whiteboard and describe what I saw on the whiteboard to students.
Asynchronous Pictatio: Body Parts, Clothes, and Animals
I have two Pictatio activities to share with you if you are teaching body parts, clothes, and, of course, animals. Students previously learned vocabulary to describe what they were wearing or what others were wearing. From there, we transitioned to describing animals that were wearing clothes and then onto their body parts. We are using these stories in our second year of Middle School Latin.
Note: Especially since we’re asynchronous and we have students at vastly different ability levels, the word order is more English syntax than Latin syntax. In addition, since students are about to be focusing very hard on phrases with the genitive, the story uses the genitive with body parts rather than the dative.
Cattus Asynchronous Pictatio
The first Pictatio is simpler and describes only one animal, a cat. The cat is wearing various articles of clothing, some of which are in unusual places. Here is the recording where my colleague, who has an excellent reading voice, reads the Pictatio.
Olim est cattus qui ubique gerit vestimentum optimum! Cattus est pulcher. Habet tria crura, nasum parvum et pulchrum, et magnam caudam. Corpus catti est atrum, sed caput catti est candidum.
Quid cattus gerit? Cattus gerit focale in collo. Et quid est hoc?! Cattus gerit magnum petasum in cauda, non in capite! Cattus gerit tres calceos quia habet tria crura et tres pedes. Duo calcei sunt flavi, sed unus calceus est ruber. Cattus gerit duos calceos flavos in pedibus, sed cattus gerit unum calceum rubrum in capite!
Babae! Cattus est optimus! Cattus me delectat.
Rana Asynchronous Pictatio
The second Pictatio is a little longer and tells more of a story with two different characters in it. The characters’ body parts are described as well as their clothing and their actions. Some students really rocked this harder pictatio! Here is the link to the recording of the Pictatio (thanks again to my colleague for agreeing to share!).
Olim erat rana quae gerit stolam in corpore. Saltare in stola delectat ranam. Rana saltat et saltat et saltat. Rana quoque gerit petasum in capite, et petasus parvus est! Rana quoque gerit focale in collo. Ita, rana gerit et stolam in corpore et focale in collo! Rana saltat et gerit magnos calceos in pedibus.
Mus horribilis vidit magnos calceos et vult capere magnos calceos ranae. Vah! Mus horribilis vult capere calceos quia mus horribilis non gerit calceos in pedibus. Sed mus gerit braccas in cruribus et indusium in corpore. Mus quoque vult capere petasum ranae quia mus non gerit petasum in capite. Mus gerit tibiale in cauda.
Mus pessimus est! Mus it ad ranam quia mus vult calceos! Rana videt murem et pulsat murem calceo!
“Aieee!” clamat mus, et mus celeriter it a rana.
Quid agit rana? Rana ponit calceum in pede et saltat et saltat et saltat.
Let me know if you use these Pictatio activities and how your students do with them!
