Henle after Third Form??

[TaraT]

Hello!

I have a rising 12th and 10th who are finishing Third Form this year. I had a friend who has taught the Forms and Henle extensively that she thought Fourth Form was not necessarily needed especially for an older student and that it was her experience that children where ready and preferred to move on to Henle and more translation. She also said that Fourth Form was a bit disjointed and wasn't as methodical as the early Forms.🤷♀️ I would love to hear form yall about what you think is best for older students, or all students for that matter, after Third Form. Also if we decide to skip FF, where should we pick up in Henle? Any advice and thoughts welcome!!! Thank you!

[momgineer]

I wonder what she meant by “move on to Henle”. Is she starting over from ground zero with Henle 1’or jumping from Third Form to Henle 2? Fourth Form actually uses Henle for translation exercises. Once a student finishes Fourth Form, the move to Henle 2 because the grammar in Henle 1 is already mastered. Honestly, much of Fourth Form is not taught in Henle 1, but taught for the first time in Henle 2. That makes it sound like maybe you can jump from Third Form to Henle 2, but there is enough material in Fourth Form that is in Henle 1 that I wouldn’t want to skip it. I also wouldn’t want to start a student over in Henle 1 after Third Form as almost (but not quite) the entire book would be review of mastered material. I know so many people have the idea that you start over in high school with book 1. Many view middle school Latin much like MP views LC- great info but will be retaught later. That is NOT how the Forms are set up. They are set up for mastery and to lead into a translation level course like Henle 2. So unlike the vast majority of middle school Latin programs, one does not “start over” in Henle 1 after the Forms. This is a different way of seeing middle school Latin and throws off some people who see the Forms simply as getting ready for Henle 1. So my recommendation for someone who has finished Third Form is to keep going with Fourth Form (which utilizes Henle 1 for homework) and then go directly to Henle 2.

[TaraT]

I wonder what she meant by “move on to Henle”. Is she starting over from ground zero with Henle 1’or jumping from Third Form to Henle 2? Fourth Form actually uses Henle for translation exercises. Once a student finishes Fourth Form, the move to Henle 2 because the grammar in Henle 1 is already mastered. Honestly, much of Fourth Form is not taught in Henle 1, but taught for the first time in Henle 2. That makes it sound like maybe you can jump from Third Form to Henle 2, but there is enough material in Fourth Form that is in Henle 1 that I wouldn’t want to skip it. I also wouldn’t want to start a student over in Henle 1 after Third Form as almost (but not quite) the entire book would be review of mastered material. I know so many people have the idea that you start over in high school with book 1. Many view middle school Latin much like MP views LC- great info but will be retaught later. That is NOT how the Forms are set up. They are set up for mastery and to lead into a translation level course like Henle 2. So unlike the vast majority of middle school Latin programs, one does not “start over” in Henle 1 after the Forms. This is a different way of seeing middle school Latin and throws off some people who see the Forms simply as getting ready for Henle 1. So my recommendation for someone who has finished Third Form is to keep going with Fourth Form (which utilizes Henle 1 for homework) and then go directly to Henle 2.

I completely understand and agree with your interpretation on how the Forms are supposed to be used and viewed. Thank you for your response. I honestly had never thought about skipping Fourth until she said something and I thought I'd inquire!

While we are talking about Latin, :-) what are you thoughts for assigning any credit prior to High School for certain levels of Latin, like Third or Fourth?? My youngest is on more of a MP track with Latin and I was wondering if anyone gives credit for Third or Fourth prior to 9th grade?

[Bonnie]

I would defer to what Jon thinks about this, but I believe that your students can go on to Henle II. The first 16 of 32 lessons in Henle II are a review of concepts covered in Henle I (which means a review of concepts covered in Fourth Form). Fr. Henle said that he wrote Henle II with so much review material in the beginning, as he knew that many students would not complete Henle I in an academic year.

You may (or may not) need to go somewhat more slowly in the first 16 lessons than the Student Guide recommends. But I think there are reasons to do Henle II, one of which is that your 12th grader will have the chance to read and translate some of Caesar's Gallic War before completing his/her high school studies. If Henle II should prove to be a bridge too far, you could switch back to Fourth Form and save the Henle II materials for later use by the 10th grader.

Bonnie

[momgineer]

When I have a student who finishes Fourth Form in 8th, they just keep going in Latin at least 2 more years. They get a credit for Latin 2 in 9th and Latin 3 in 10th and Latin 4 (or AP Latin if we do it) in 11th. I don’t put Latin 1 on the transcript as I assume a college would know they finished Latin 1 in order to take Latin 2 🤷♀️.
I did have two who finished Fourth Form in 9th and I called it Latin 1. The only time I, personally, would give credit for Fourth Form completed in middle school is if my student needed three years of foreign language for a college application and they stopped after Latin 3. In that case, it would put Latin 1 as a foreign language credit, but indicate it was taken in 8th. I haven’t had that situation, but I do put geometry and biology taken in 8th on the transcript this way so that is also how it would do Latin 1. But again, if they get their three required foreign language credits beyond Latin 1, I don’t put it. And that three required is only some colleges. Many accept just two credits.

[TaraT]

When I have a student who finishes Fourth Form in 8th, they just keep going in Latin at least 2 more years. They get a credit for Latin 2 in 9th and Latin 3 in 10th and Latin 4 (or AP Latin if we do it) in 11th. I don’t put Latin 1 on the transcript as I assume a college would know they finished Latin 1 in order to take Latin 2 🤷♀️.
I did have two who finished Fourth Form in 9th and I called it Latin 1. The only time I, personally, would give credit for Fourth Form completed in middle school is if my student needed three years of foreign language for a college application and they stopped after Latin 3. In that case, it would put Latin 1 as a foreign language credit, but indicate it was taken in 8th. I haven’t had that situation, but I do put geometry and biology taken in 8th on the transcript this way so that is also how it would do Latin 1. But again, if they get their three required foreign language credits beyond Latin 1, I don’t put it. And that three required is only some colleges. Many accept just two credits.

I understand! Thank you!

[TaraT]

I would defer to what Jon thinks about this, but I believe that your students can go on to Henle II. The first 16 of 32 lessons in Henle II are a review of concepts covered in Henle I (which means a review of concepts covered in Fourth Form). Fr. Henle said that he wrote Henle II with so much review material in the beginning, as he knew that many students would not complete Henle I in an academic year.

You may (or may not) need to go somewhat more slowly in the first 16 lessons than the Student Guide recommends. But I think there are reasons to do Henle II, one of which is that your 12th grader will have the chance to read and translate some of Caesar's Gallic War before completing his/her high school studies. If Henle II should prove to be a bridge too far, you could switch back to Fourth Form and save the Henle II materials for later use by the 10th grader.

Bonnie

Thank you, Bonnie, for this perspective. I wonder also if the fact that my boys seem tired of the lesson videos, they would prefer just diving in and studying a text for themselves. Not sure if that makes sense. Another point is that I need them to be fairly independent this next year as I will be spending more time with my youngest who will be starting Third. I see there are no lesson plans for Henle 2. Does the student know what to do and when?? Again I need them to be able to lead themselves more or less this year. I will still over see, evaluate, and grade, but I won't be learning it along with them.

[Bonnie]

I think I can say that there will be more written guidance for Henle II in the next academic year. Students will be instructed what to do each day, and there will be more help in understanding the concepts in the Henle textbook and the Henle Grammar. You will not need to learn the Latin yourself, but you will be able to see that they are doing the work assigned and to administer tests and monitor their progress.

Bonnie

[momgineer]

There are lesson plans for Henle 2. I used them two years ago with my daughter. It is a green and white book (as opposed to the pdf lesson plans). It tells exactly what to do each day complete with a checklist. It doesn’t give any teaching help. Caution: it doesn’t assign any of the actual Caesar translation as it’s intent is just the “lessons” which are the grammar. Starting in around lesson 16 or so the text actually assigns translation passages for the Caesar readings. I had to go into my lesson book and write those in (based on what the text said to do when).

[momgineer]

Here is the Henle 2 set with the lesson plans. https://www.memoriapress.com/curricu...-lesson-plans/

[Bonnie]

There will be new material for Henle II next year.

[Jon Christianson]

I would defer to what Jon thinks about this...

I have been summoned!

My first answer, naturally, would be that sticking it out with Fourth Form Latin is the best idea. 4FL has the scope and sequence it does specifically to on-ramp people to Henle II and beyond. What you describe as disjointed is, admittedly, not as delightfully linear as most of the previous Forms, but that's because 4FL is very much cleaning out the corners of one's Latin grammar instead of tackling big central topics as before. The chief benefit of 4FL is its gentle familiarization with Henle; as some of the previous posts say, the use of Henle I for exercises in Fourth Form introduces students to the Henle process so that when they cross from the end of the Forms into the Henle program, their attention is less spent on acquainting themselves with a new way of doing things and more on new content.

However, if you are significantly concerned that 4FL is not your cup of tea, a jump to Henle is certainly possible; your landing point is the only question mark. I would recommend starting Henle I at Unit 6. We typically split up Henle I into Units 1-5 and Units 6-14 because that halfway point correlates strongly with the content of First-Second Form and Third-Fourth Form respectively. That means a student of Third Form could begin Henle I 6-14 and complete it in a year, which would neither accelerate nor decelerate your schedule since Fourth Form would supposedly take a year anyway. The first few lessons of Henle I 6-16 would be familiar, since they cover subjunctive verbs in Third Form, but subjunctives can always do with a bit of review; beyond that, it's mostly brand new content. (Besides, while the grammar content of the aforementioned halfway points of Henle I and the Forms is nearly identical, the vocabulary is not! What seems like backtracking grammar-wise still has its benefits in vocabulary and other categories.) After that, it's Henle II the next year, and so on.

I'm not as sanguine as some of the folks above me about jumping straight to Henle II. It is correct to say that there's a great deal of review in the early parts of Henle II, but in my experience recommending program switches to parents, the solution to a possible challenge is not a bigger challenge. If you're a jungle explorer and the bridge across the chasm (4FL) seems rickety, why try leaping across (to Henle II) when there's another bridge nearby (Henle I 6-14) that'll take the same amount of time to cross? I lean strongly toward taking the extra time to make sure you get it versus jumping ahead to reach for the highest heights. If your student is on track to finish Third Form this year and the natural next step is Fourth Form, combining the difficulties of switching to a new program AND of jumping a year ahead and treating review material as new material is a risk for which I don't see a commensurate reward.

- Jon

[momgineer]

There will be new material for Henle II next year.

That is soooo exciting. I really could have used better guidance. I just can’t seem to read Henle and understand like I can with Forms. It’s so discombobulated with some teaching in the text, some in the grammar, some just in some random page back in Henle 1 (like gender rules for 3rd declension since they don’t put gender in the dictionary).
Even if they want to start before that is available, there are actually lesson plans currently as well as flashcards.

Do you know if this new material will cover the Caesar translations or are they still just doing grammar and saving Caesar for Mueller?

[tanya]

That's right! Lots of good new help coming, written by Bonnie herself! I am excited to push this project through editing and get it out on the street!

[tanya]

I'm going to let Bonnie speak to what's in the guide she wrote!