Janet Stephens is a hairdresser who has been working to recreate Roman hairstyles using the techniques of the time. You may have seen her links to her Vestal Virgin hairstyle going around this past week, but she has a great many more Classical hairstyles recreated on her YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/jntvstp. There is a Greek one that ties up the hair with a simple band of cloth and the famous Flavian one.
Like many teachers, I am always looking for ways to make my classroom look nice and educational at the same time. I have always loved the posters that French and Spanish teachers have with weather, days of the week, numbers, etc… on them. But these are hard to find for Latin.
Therefore, last summer, a few of my friends and I undertook a project to make such posters for our Latin classrooms. (We split up the work, of course! There were SO many posters!)
The aim in making the posters was to provide visual cues, rather than definitions. So we did things like: Dies Lunae with the moon on it, or Pluit with a picture of someone standing outside in the rain and carrying an umbrella. We even did a color wheel, with crayons for the various colors.
Anyway, so how does one use these? I work with them from the first day of class. We go around the room and talk through the posters and the students understand what they are and where to look if they need a reminder of what a word or phrase means.
These are TERRIFIC when you are working to get your students composing, writing, speaking. The visual cues give them another association with the word besides the definition or just another word on a flashcard. Our students love them—hope yours will too!
If you want to do these posters too, they are actually really easy to make. (If you click the pictures, you can see what we did with the posters!) We used Apple’s Pages, but Photoshop works too—or really, any image manipulation program. We made the following posters: (unless otherwise specified, they are 8.5” x 11”, individual posters)
Days of the week
Months of the year
Alphabet posters
Numeral posters (I-X and then counting by 10s up)
Clothing posters (Modern and Ancient—using a dressed person and pointing to various articles of clothing)
Weather posters
Season posters
Prepositions with the Accusative (2 pages)
Prepositions with the Ablative
Color wheel (11×17)
Useful phrases (non intellego, etc…)
How to write a Roman Letter
Ways to say yes
Ways to say no
May I go to the bathroom?
Commonly confused Q words
A few fun ones: Harrius Potter, Twilight (Crepusculum), Hunger Games (Ludi Famis), Doctor Who (Medicus Quis), That’s What She Said (Est quod Illa Dixit), Call Me Maybe (Voca me, fortasse!), and Epic Fail (Defectio Epica).
UT-Austin is offering its Intensive Summer Greek course again: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/classics/courses/Summer.php
The Vergilian Society has a variety of trips and classes available for the summer: http://www.vergil.clarku.edu/cumae.htm
Ascanius’s LatinSummer program is open for applications for students in grades 1-7: http://www.ascaniusyci.org/latinsummer/ (There’s one in Amherst, MA, as well as sites in VA, SC, and MO.) (via @etclassics and Ascanius)
Conventiculum Bostoniense runs from 27 July to 4 August: http://apaclassics.org/index.php/apa_blog/apa_blog_entry/conventiculum_bostoniense/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter (via @apaclassics)
UGA Classics Summer Institute: http://rogueclassicism.com/2013/02/07/ed-ugaclassics-summer-institute-2013/ (via @etclassics and @rogueclassicist)
Excavation in Umbria: http://quemdixerechaos.com/2013/01/14/romarch-roman-period-archaeological-field-school-in-umbria-vicus-ad-martis/ (via @rogueclassicist)
A gold wreath was found in a Greek subway: http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/ancient-gold-wreath-found-in-greek-subway-130207.htm (via @Archaeology365)
Pompeii updates: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/good-news-and-bad-for-pompeii/?partner=rss&emc=rss (via @tronchin)
Roman air pollution: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Air-Pollution-Has-Been-a-Problem-Since-the-Days-of-Ancient-Rome-187936271.html?device=ipad (via @c_katsari)
Culture Week in Rome has been canceled: https://saverome.wordpress.com/2013/02/07/culture-week-canceled/ (via @AIRomanCulture)
Roman hairstyles recreated: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324900204578286272195339456.html (via @DrKillgrove et al.)
An album played on the lyre: http://www.reverbnation.com/store/view_item_album/artist_1132710?item_id=1718745 (via @AncientLyre)
Maps of the travels of Odysseus (click on the map on the page linked to for more): http://hehasawifeyouknow.tumblr.com/post/42424998856/ever-wonder-where-odysseus-travels-took-him (via @ancientblogger)
An article on new mapping of the Roman Empire: http://romanarcheo.blogspot.com/2013/02/getting-measure-of-ancient-rome.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter (via @jntribolo)
Pictures of other artifacts from Antikythera: http://phdiva.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-antikythera-wreck-photos.html?spref=tw (via @DorothyKing)
A digital reconstruction of a Roman silver dish: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2274073/Fine-dining-Roman-style-Archaeologists-digitally-reconstruct-ornate-plate-fragments-buried-Scottish-hillside-1-500-years-ago.html#axzz2KPUWDqCr (via @DorothyKing)
A free copy of a Latomus article on Caesar and topography: http://historyoftheancientworld.com/2010/03/caesars-battle-descriptions-and-the-defeat-of-ariovistus/ historyancient
SAT score news, with break outs by language: http://research.collegeboard.org/programs/sat/data/cb-seniors-2012 (via @mamacheatham @magisterstevens)
A survey for teachers who use Ecce Romani: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ecceromani (via @KatyReddick)
Three authors, dressed as Roman soldiers, are walking Hadrian’s Wall for Doctors without Borders and Combat Stress: http://www.charitygiving.co.uk/benkane