Narrative Learning

Justin did not write the book about teaching Latin to diverse learners in online spaces, but he did write chapters in two of the books:

• “Aurea Quisquis Mediocritatem Diligit: The Joyful Learning Community Model for Learning Latin Online,” in Teaching Classics with Technology, ed. Bartolo Natoli and Steven Hunt (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019)
• (with Nancy Vander Veer) “From Reading to World-Building: Collaborative Content Creation and Classical Language Learning,” in Communicative Approaches for Ancient Languages, ed. Maire E. Lloyd and Steven Hunt (Bloomsbury Academic, 2021)

Justin has decades of experience with crafting stories together with learners, parents, teachers, and other important groups. He received his B.A. in Classical Languages, summa cum laude, from Carleton College in Northfield, MN, was certified to teach Latin at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and taught high-school Latin in a large, diverse North Carolina school district from 1992 to 2014. Along the way, he served as Department Chair, developed curriculum, mentored young teachers, and taught an online course called “Differentiation by Design.” In 2009, his students persuaded him that 20th-century textbooks and learning models are “flat and dead,” and that was the beginning of the Story, the Adventure, and the Mission.

Since 2014, Justin has worked outside and alongside of formal educational settings, helping language teachers, adult learners, and families for whom a “typical” textbook-based approach is painful, difficult, or even impossible. He can be reached at justin@narrativelearning.net or learnjoyfullytogether@gmail.com