Help wanted for a big project to create a LLPSI supplement

Latin Learning Latin
1

Hello all,

The title says most of what I plan and what I need, but I’ll give some more details here.

The idea is to choose a public domain text, if possible attractive, and rework it to:

  • Improve spelling if necessary up to today’s standards
  • Add macrons if necessary
  • Edit the text to create a book similar to Sermōnēs Rōmānī, Dē Bellō Gallicō, and others, which means adding marginal notes and pictures to make the text understandable for people who just finished Familia Rōmāna.

This is a work of several month at least which needs some serious implication from people. That would be collaborative, so that everybody would edit the same document.

What to gain? Improving your mastering of the vocabulary and others by systematically looking up for meaning and definitions, and the pleasure to offer a new learning tool for students.

I don’t plan to sell the work for the time being, or if it’s to be sold, that would be to give the chance to own a physical copy.

I already have some experience for such a project because of my work on Winnie ille Pu, so that would make things easier. I also made a full vocabulary list compiling the contents of all the LLPSI books if there is a need of references.

So, who is interested at first glance?

2

I am intrigued by the idea, but not sure how much time I could commit, since we are about to start a new academic year and I have quite a full teaching load. I have just adopted LLPSI for my Latin classes, and such a project would certainly be beneficial to me, both to teach from and as a potential contributor to enhance my own learning.

I would definitely like to look into this a little more to see if it is something I would be able to participate in, if you can give me a bit more information

3

I’m glad you show some interest.

The idea is as basic as what it looks. Once we have an attractive text to adapt and the necessary changes are made (as I stated, fixing bad/outdated spelling, adding macrons, and sometimes the text itself), the “real” work begins.

That means read the text, word by word, sentence by sentence, and check if the word or its use is explained in FR. If it’s not, it has to be explained in a marginal note, just as what’s seen in FR, RA, and the supplements.

A way of working has to be established in order to be efficient. As I said in my first post, I gained some experience with Winnie ille Pu (if you’re interested, I can show you what it looks like in private), so things will be easier than this first try.

From what I can imagine for now, we could make a draft with all new things indicated by footnotes or similar, written in a way that an index would easily be constructed from them. That would mean keep a record of the words explained in order not to explain them multiple times. I suppose working on a collaborative tool may be the key in succeeding, such as Google Docs, thus multiple people could work on the document at once.

Once this has been done on a section (for example), final layout may begin. The layout may depend on the number of notes: many notes = higher space between lines.

I think the ideal would be around 4 motivated (and available) people: not too many so that we can know who does what and everybody knows each other, and not too few so that there may be mutual correction and the work make progress.

What means motivated and available? That means be able to spend at least a little time everyday (half an hour), or instead 2-3 hours on week-ends. If motivation and/or availability is a problem, it will be necessary to have more people. Of course, a single mildly motivated person could do the work alone, but that would take centuries and we have to keep in mind the the goal is to eventually release the work, not just to work endlessly on the text.

That’s how I see things for the time being, but you’re free to discuss about it and ask for other complements.

4

Nobody is interested?

5

Hi,
Does the offer still stand? I’m interested and am free (my two month long summer holidays begin in less than a week) basically anytime during then except for a few days in January when I am attending a Latin Summer School program run by a nearby university.

If the offer still stands, please shoot me a private message or reply to this one.