Lesson Overview 

The Translation Project

Please see the handout.  The students will work with partners and will be given a section of one of the Cantos that we've gone over in class.  Each set of partners will have two stanzas.  Here are the directions from the handout:
Begin this assignment by choosing a partner; by now you should know how important it is to find  someone who will work as hard as you – with you – and in a way that you compliment each other.  You and your partner are to translate a small part of Dante’s Inferno (2 stanzas).  You are not to consult your book or any other translation, but you are to talk to, email, and otherwise confer with your classmates.

Signing Up

The second page of the handout is a sign-up sheet.  The teacher will either assign or let students choose (more difficult but gives more ownership) on which two stanzas (they need to be consecutive) they will do.  After they sign up they are given further directions:

The first step is to be assigned two stanzas.  After you get your assignment, you are to transliterate every word in your section.  That means you are going to find what every word in Italian (in your two stanzas) literally means in English. See the illustration below and the worksheet. You will find Italian dictionaries useful, but you will run into problems when you get to verbs (remember they have all those conjugated forms).  There are massive dictionaries that contain all the various verb forms – you will have to seek them out.  You can also find Italian dictionaries online (go to google – type Italian English dictionary).  Do not look up your lines on the Internet – this will only lead to plagiarism – inadvertent or not.  You may find the internet a good source for Italian Dictionaries – but remember you must translate each word – not phrases or sentences.

Angry Italian teachers

At our school we had Italian classes and the students are warned in the handout not to go bothering those teachers.  I wanted the students to do the footwork, the research, the finding and understanding dictionaries themselves - so that they could get a small taste of what translating was like.

Turning nonsense into Poetry

Once they have a transliteration - they need to turn that into Poetry.  Here are some of those instructions: Now the fun part – You will take what will probably look like a bunch of nonsense, and turn it into a poem.  How do you do this?  Well, first play with the English words until you and your partner can come up with some possible meanings of the line(s).  This would also be a good time (before you get too involved in the actual writing of the poetry – the translation) to consult with the partners that have the lines before yours and the partners that have the lines after yours.  This is without a doubt, the hardest but also the most rewarding part of this assignment.  Concentrate on the transliteration at this point  – it is up to you and the those that precede and follow you.  Find the poet in you.