Yearly Archives: 2014

Announcements May 4

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CANE

  • The CANE calendar, which covers the 2014-2015 academic year, is available from Amazon. Or, if you’d rather, you can order it directly from CANE Press for $16.
  • The theme for the 2014 CANE Summer Institute is “On the Shoulders of Giants”: Greco-Roman Giants and their Modern Emulators.”  Register now!
  • It isn’t too early to pay membership dues for the 2014-2015 school year.

BEYOND CANE

Conferences/Meetings

  • The NHCA Annual Classics Day for Students will be held this year at St. Anselm’s College from 9:00 am until 1:00 pm on Friday, May 16th.
  • The Classics Program at the University of New Hampshire is pleased to issue a call for papers for its first Rouman Symposium for Research in Classics and the Humanities, to be held on the Durham campus from October 17–19, 2014. The Symposium is sponsored by the John C. Rouman Classical Lecture Series and will run from the afternoon of Friday the 17th until the early afternoon of Sunday the 19th. For more information, or to send in an abstract, contact R. Scott Smith.
  • The Academy Vivarium Novum is offering ten full tuition scholarships for high school students (16-18 years old) and ten full tuition scholarships for University students (18-24 years old) of any part of the world. The scholarships will cover all of the costs of room, board, teaching and didactic materials for courses to be held from October 6, 2014 until June 13, 2015 on the grounds of the Academy’s campus at Rome.The goal is to achieve a perfect command of both Latin and Greek through a total immersion in the two languages in order to master without any hindrances the texts and concepts which have been handed down from the ancient times, middle ages, the Renaissance period and modern era, and to cultivate the humanities in a manner similar to the Renaissance humanists.All the classes will be conducted in Latin, except for Greek classes which will be conducted in ancient Greek.
    Application letters must be sent to info@vivariumnovum.net by July 1st in order to receive consideration. You can also use that email to ask for details on how to apply!

Meetups and Certamina

  • CLIPEUS is running several Latin speaking meetups in Boston. Check the link for more information.
  • ClassCON is having a meet-up May 13th from 4:30 to 6:30pm at the Hamden Hall Country Day School Main Campus, Whitson Building, Room 15 Please contact Stephanie Spaulding by May 9th to RSVP.
  • THE BROOKLINE CERTAMEN
    (formerly The 2766 Certamen)
    This Certamen, held May 31st at Brookline High School, is open to any student who has not placed 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in a Certamen in Massachusetts by April 1 of the 2013-2014 school year. All questions will be based on the National Latin Exam syllabus. There will be no final rounds: everybody will play all four rounds, with total points determining the winners. Rank pitting after the first round means that teams of similar abilities will play against each other. Register at the above link by May 12th, please!

Summer Opportunities

  • The Cambridge Latin Course is offering a three-day workshop in Boston, August 5-7. See their announcement for details!
  • Registration for this summer’s American Classical League Summer Institute in Williamsburg, VA is now open.
  • McGill is offering a summer course in Classical Studies in June and July. Check out their flyer.
  • The American Institute for Roman Culture (AIRC) has a 2014 schedule for its Summer and Fall study abroad programs, and include Media Studies, Art History, and Field School Excavations.
  • Do your students ask you how they can improve their Latin? Do they ask you about summer opportunities in Latin or ancient history? Calder Classics invites students entering grades 9 through 12 to join us in Rome in July 20 – August 3, 2014. Over the course of a 2-week program, the Classics will come alive through the study of Latin, exploration of ancient and modern sites and immersion in daily Italian life. Calder’s small, personalized programs of 6-8 students allow us to provide individual instruction to each student in both Latin and ancient history.
  • Do you have a passion for Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Latin? Would you like to improve the speed and fluency with which you read Latin? Then join the immersion program at the Conventiculum Bostoniense, taught by experts in Classical and Neo-Latin from both Europe and the United States. You can also earn graduate credit, by taking one of our two week-length courses. Find more information and application materials here: https://sites.google.com/site/conventiculumbostoniense

The Epic History Timeline 1

This entry was posted in Feature Posts and tagged History pedagogy project Rome on by

For some reason, I have found that whenever I get my upper level students, they have no historical context for what we are reading.  This year, I worked very hard on giving my Latin 2 students that context, so that they would have it for Latin 3.  But how to make them retain it?
This is where I came up with the Epic History Timeline.  You will need:  three rolls of that wide Bulletin Board Paper (Colors make it look awesome!), Colored pencils/Markers (Markers stand out more!), and devices that can access the internet.
I gave my students these instructions:
“Working in groups of 3, your mission, whether or not you choose to accept it, is to outline a period of Roman history on a Timeline.  You must find 20 or more events for your time period.
Your group will select this time period by chance.  Working in your group of three, you will each need to choose a role:
*Exquisitor—You will be researching the chosen time period on your phone and will be in charge of describing the event to the Scriptor and the Pictor.
*Scriptor—You will, on the description of the Exquisitor, put the event on the timeline, and write a concise description of the event.
*Pictor—You will draw a picture of the event on the timeline.
Once you have put together your piece of the timeline, you will present it to the class, discussing your events and their significance to Roman History.  Then, add your timeline piece to the timeline.
Don’t forget to put your names on your section!”
They then drew their time periods out of a hat.  I had seven groups, so I split the time periods up like this:
The Monarchy (753 BC to 509 BC)
Early Republic (510 BC to 367 BC)
Mid Republic (366 BC to 132 BC)
Late Republic (133 BC to 31 BC)
Early Empire (30 BC to 68 AD)
Mid Empire (68 AD to 96 AD)
Mid Empire 2 (96 AD to 180 AD)
Each group was instructed to cut 4 feet of bulletin board paper, and get started.  The results were spectacular!  This project took two to three 1.5 hour classes, from start to finish.  (Three classes for most of my classes!)  Each group presented their section to the class and talked about why the events in their section were important to Roman history.  We then pieced the timelines together and hung them up All over the school.  These things are a work of art!
(And, yes, I did give them a quiz about it, with fantastic results.)
I love this project because there is something for everyone.  Those who would rather research can do so; those who have the gift of neat handwriting can make use of that talent; and, of course, the ones who like to draw can do that too.  The students need to internalize and own the historical events so that they can explain them clearly to their peers. This project worked extremely well for my students and I hope yours enjoy it too!