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The Romans (Summer 2004) |
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Summary |
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This intensive three-week summer course for college-bound high school students gave me the opportunity to design a civilization course from the ground up. Since the class met for three hours a day, five days a week, I was able to introduce the 15 students to a wide range of topics in Roman civilization. Each class began with a lecture supported by PowerPoint presentations, usually on historical topics or on art and architecture. The longest portion of each day's schedule was devoted to discussion of the day's reading assignment (authors included Livy, Cicero, Catullus, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Petronius, among others). With each assignment I included several questions to guide the students' reading and to help them prepare for discussions. The last part of the class session varied daily, but often I used it for writing tutorials, since I required daily response papers on the readings. These short papers helped me assess how well the students were understanding their reading, and often provided a spur to discussions. I also assigned a longer paper, and introduced the students to college-level research, including a tour of the library and its research tools. In group presentations the students were able to teach each other (and me) about areas we could not cover in class - a musical about rapacious provincial governors was particularly memorable. There were also two field trips to area art museums.
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Selected Course Material |
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| Syllabus |
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Assignment with reading/response paper questions 1 |
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Assignment with reading/response paper questions 2 |
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Assignment with reading/response paper questions 3 |
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Assignment with reading/response paper questions 4 |
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Form for rough draft peer review assignment |
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Standards for grading papers |
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Checklist for papers |
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Evaluations |
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"[The major strengths were] the different ways we learned: reading, discussions, field trips to museums, movies, research, & group presentations." |
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"The responses we did for nightly readings helped out and allowed us to analyze what was going on in our books." |
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"The nightly writing assignments were thought-provoking and allowed for a lot of personal opinions. The in-class discussions were easy to participate in and interesting to follow, and the strong point in the course." |
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"Insightful discussions, very informative... no wasting time." |
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"I loved the reading that we had to do, and the way the lectures were presented made it all so interesting. I loved the course overall... I really enjoyed the course and the professor and it was a very good experience. I learned a lot." |
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"This was the most I've ever learned in 3 weeks. My understanding and interest in Roman civilization has skyrocketed. It was a pleasure to have a knowledgeable and well-prepared professor." |
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"I loved the whole experience. This was one of the most informative and fun times of my life." |
