video videre vidi visum - to see

As I explained in my previous post, I am teaching Vergil's Aeneid in translation. I decided to do Book VI, Aeneas' descent to the Underworld. The name of the unit is "texts and context", and so it is important for my students to understand the context in which the Aeneid was written. This means that there was a lot of information I needed my students to know before we could even start reading Book VI.

I tested out an idea I've had for a while, but haven't yet implemented in my teaching: passports. My students are Time Travellers to the Ancient World, and every piece of background information they learn comprises a visa entry in their passports. Once they have completed each visa entry, they will get a stamp in their passports. The students use their passports as their bookmarks, so they always have the information at hand if they need to look something up.

Passport cover and back page where students fill in their information

The titles of the ten visa entries that students had to complete and a place for the stamp

One page for students to write down the task for each visa entry

I printed out one cover, one visa titles page and six visa entries pages per student. The students then folded the pages in half to create a small booklet for their passports. I created ten visa entries as part of the unit.

Visa Entry #1: Founding of Rome myth - Romulus and Remus

The first visa was a short piece of homework the students had to complete: find the myth of Romulus and Remus. We discussed it in class and students wrote a short summary of the story in their passports.

Visa Entry #2: Word Power activity - ancient and modern

We watched a short video to learn about the Olympian gods and goddesses (and a couple of other deities), and then completed activities on the names of the planets and the days of the week (in English and Spanish). This is a rather 'trivial pursuit' kind of activity with a two-fold purpose. Firstly, it is designed to engage the students - they enjoy making the connections - and secondly, it allows me to plant the idea of relevance. Yes, the Aeneid was written 2000 years ago, but we can still learn from it and enjoy it today. Just as we see the daily use of the gods and goddesses in our solar system and calendars!

Visa Entry #3: Gods and goddesses - Jupiter, Juno, Apollo and Venus

Jupiter, Juno, Apollo and Venus feature extensively in the Aeneid and so students researched the main attributes of each deity in order to understand their roles in more detail. They completed the research for homework in their copybooks and then transferred the most important information into their passports after a class discussion on each god.

Visa Entry #4: The Underworld

Book VI is set in the Underworld and so the Roman (and Greek) concept of the Underworld is an integral piece of information. I put together a short powerpoint presentation and information worksheet on the Underworld and we answered five questions for the visa entry:

1. Who is the god of the Underworld and how did he come by his wife?
2. What role does Charon play in the Underworld?
3. What is Cerberus? What do his heads represent and how is this appropriate to the Underworld?
4. What did the Romans believe about the afterlife?
5. How did Avernus get its name and why?

Visa Entry #5: Vergil biography

I combined this entry on the poet with a brief history of Rome. We learnt about the kings, republic and empire, and about how Augustus "found Rome mud and left it marble". In the information about Vergil, I introduced the idea that the Aeneid was a commissioned poem and we learnt the concept of propaganda...

Visa Entry #6: Origins of the Trojan War myths

Throughout our journey so far, my students picked up on similarities to the movie "Troy". While I acknowledge the shortcomings of Hollywood's grasp on classical literature, I will concede that references to the movie helped. (I would also like to credit Harry Potter here, as we discussed Minerva McGonagall, Fluffy, Remus Lupin, etc.)! However, I think it is imperative for my students to understnad the greatest flaw of the movie (in my opinion) - there are no gods. All the epic poems feature squabbling Olympians; indeed, their quarrels guide the actions of the mortals. And so for this visa we learnt about Discordia's apple and Juno's hatred of Troy, and Helen's role in the story.

Visa Entry #7: Myth of Anchises and the birth of Aeneas

Of course we now knew that Venus favoured the Trojans (Dardans) thanks to Paris' judgement, but in this entry we found out that Venus' favour ran more deeply than mere gratitude. She is in fact the mother of Aeneas and so guides her son's path throughout his journey. Anchises' blindness is revealed and we were introduced to the man for whom Aeneas descends to the Underworld in Book VI.

Visa Entry #8: Introduction to epic poetry - epithets

This was a tricky entry and I wasn't sure how to tackle it at first. It's hard to explain stock phrases and "thus he spoke" so completely out of context, but I didn't want my students to falter at the formal-sounding language of Latin-in-translation. And so I copied the first seven lines of the Iliad and Aeneid in their original and read them to the class so that they could hear the lyrical quality of the Greek and Latin. We also learnt what a 'muse' is.

Afterwards we discussed the challenges of translation - being poetical versus being faithful to the original. We learnt about the Homeric question and the job of rhetors and gradually my students started to see the sense of stock phrases and epithets. The visa activity was for the students to use their new knowledge of the characters of the Aeneid and make up their own epithets for them, using both physical and personality traits.

1. Aeneas
2. Jupiter
3. Anchises
4. Juno
5. Venus
6. Neptune
7. Apollo
8. Pluto
9. Charon
10. Cerberus

This was a good activity because when we started reading the poem I made sure students highlighted all the epithets of Aeneas in particular, but also of the Sibyl and other characters. When my students come to write their essays on this text, they can learn these epithets as quotes to emphasise the themes of Roman glory, destiny, piety, etc.

Visa Entry #9: Prophecies and horoscopes

By this entry, my students had a commendable grasp of the Roman belief system, but I took the time to delve more deeply into the rituals and mysteries that pervaded every day life. Throughout the Aeneid, Vergil emphasises that Aeneas is destined to found Alba Longa and so everything he does is in accordance with the gods' wishes. For this visa entry, I created a worksheet about the Roman ideas of augury, sacrifice, oracles, the Sibyl of Cumae and the role of the gods in supporting or delaying Aeneas on his journey. We looked at the modern equivalent of tarot cards, crystal balls, fortune cookies, horoscopes and modern religions.

Visa Entry #10: Summary of Aeneid I-V

Since I had decided to read Book VI, we could not just delve in halfway through the poem, and so the final visa entry was to read a summary of Books I-V. Here I highlighted the important events that would come up in Book VI - Dido, Palinurus, and all references to destiny, religion, and Juno, Venus, Jupiter or Apollo.


Did it work?
Absolutely! I truly believe this was one of my better teaching ideas. I was so impressed with how much knowledge the students learnt and retained over the two-week period. There was no pressure on them to learn the information yet, as the idea was that they would absorb a lot of it while we were reading - i.e. the context would start to make sense in the context of the poem - but it was great to see them throwing out the answers to questions about Charon or the Sibyl when we finally started reading.

Things to fix:
Make the passports bigger! I printed two passport per A4 sheet of paper so the passports were close to the size of a regular passport. However, my students had to write very small in order to squeeze some of their information in.

Complete some visa entries while reading the poem. I had students complete the entire passport before we started to read Book VI. I don't think it got boring to do two weeks of passport work, but if I teach this unit again, I would think about saving some visa entries for after we've started reading so that the context and the poem are not so separate. I could definitely do visa entries 5 and 7 after we start reading, and possibly 2 or 3 as well.

tabula -ae f. tablet; cera -ae f. wax

I'll be teaching Literature in Translation to my new IB Diploma class next term and I've decided to do Book VI of Vergil's Aeneid. I had an idea for my students to make wax tablets as part of their learning. My students will be tackling this project in July or August, but today I did a "dummy run" to see how feasible this project will be. Here are some instructions and the final product.

The materials needed: a box, tinfoil, scissors, candles, matches, chopsticks and a craft knife. (And, of course, a suitably Roman quote!)

Use a smallish box (I used 14x10cm) and cut it down to about 2cm in height. Cover it in tinfoil so that none of the wax leaks out. (I might ask my students to 'decorate' the outside of the box so that it looks wooden or more 'authentic')

Fill the box with wax. I used three candles for this, but I would recommend putting a false bottom into the box as you don't need 2cm of wax to write on! It would be easier to melt the wax in a pot on the stove and pour it into the box, but I won't have a stove to use at school, so I melted the candles by burning them. This is quite time-consuming, and it also burnt the wax a bit, resulting in the wax turning grey-black at times. Not a big deal.

The next step is to make a stylus. For this I sharpened one end of a chopstick using a craft knife. I also flattened the other end of the chopstick (3c), as this was the Romans' way of smoothing out the wax to erase any errors.

 

Finally it's time to write! I chose the opening two lines of the Aeneid. In order to write, you have to scratch out the wax, leaving a dent to form each letter. You'll need to clear the wax as it builds up.

"I sing of arms and the man, exiled by fate,
who first came from the coast of Troy to Italy"
Aeneid I, 1-2

The final product

I'm looking forward to doing this with my students; I think we can fit it into a double lesson. Hopefully this activity will help them to remember important quotes from the poem to use in their essays!

fulmen -inis n. lightning bolt

Whilst watching the Olympic Trials and getting involved in the build-up to the Games, I came up with another Olympic coin idea: Zeus and the 100m event. Not immediately obvious? Perhaps these pictures will clear things up!

equus -i m. horse

In English, a horse wears a 'horse shoe', or 'shoe for horse'. In French, a horse wears a 'fer à cheval', or 'iron for horse', while German horses are shod with a 'Hufeisen' or 'hoof iron'.

All these signs are motivated: English and French see a relationship between the animal as a whole and the protecting device, while German relates the protecting device to the relevant body part of the horse.

Moreover, French and German highlight the material the protecting device is made of, whereas English, by using shoe, takes an anthropocentric view of the scene.

Isn't language construal fascinating?

*This piece of knowledge comes courtesy of an extract in my linguistics textbook: Dirven & Verspoor (1998: 14-15) cited in Hendrikse et al. 2008. Approaches in Linguistics University of South Africa: Pretoria

Hispania -ae f. Spain

I moved to Chile in 2011 and started to learn Spanish for the first time. While I was out for dinner one night, I asked the waiter what "hongos" were. Mushrooms, he explained. I realised that "hongos" was similar to the English word "fungi". I had already noticed that "hacer" (to do or make) is similar to its Latin equivalent "facere", whence we derive the English word fact.

So I did some digging to find out why the initial 'f' and 'h' were interchanged in words of the same origin. I learnt that most Latin words that began with an 'f' followed by a vowel evolved into Spanish words (alone among Romance languages) as an 'h'. The reason for this change is still unknown, but it has been ascribed to Basque speakers, as the change was first documented in areas where many Basques were known to live. The theory is that the Basque language did not have an 'f' sound, and so substituted it for the nearest sound in their language, which was 'h'. However, this theory has been disputed.

Of course, I tried to come up with more examples of the 'f' - 'h' phenomenon. Can you think of any more?

hongo -- fungus
halcón - falcon
horno -- furnace
hablar -- fable
higo -- fig
horma - form
(hacer -- facere)

nummus -i m. coin

In my last post I referred to Peter Jones' article on the Royal Mint's new coins in celebration of the London Olympics. The man behind the coins mistakenly depicted Jupiter and Juno as the "Gods of Olympia" on the coins. Obviously these are the Roman gods, and not the Greek gods of Mount Olympus, who would have been more appropriate given that the Olympic Games originated in Greece in 776BCE.

The Olympic coins featuring Roman deities.

In their Mythography workshop, my students designed their own Olympic coins, choosing Greek gods and sports that were appropriate to those gods. We came up with the following list of deities and sports. Can you add anything?

Poseidon, God of Water (and horses)
Water sports - Swimming, Diving, Kayaking, etc.
Equestrian sports - show jumping, dressage, etc.

Hermes, God of Travel
Running events - track events, Marathon, Triathlon, etc.

Ares, God of War
'Fighting' (or strength) sports - Wrestling, Boxing, Weight-lifting, Fencing, etc.

Apollo, God of Archery
Archery (Maybe Cupid could work here!)

Athena, Goddess of Wisdom
Javelin (she holds a spear, but this could also be Ares or even Artemis)

Hephaestus, God of Metalwork
Field events - Hammer throw, Shotput

And, of course, although there is no sport for her, special mention should be made of Nike, Goddess of Victory. I'm sure all the athletes will be praying to her...

mythos -ou m. tale, story; graphé -és f. writing

I am teaching an 8-week workshop to students in their last year of high school. The workshop can be on anything as long as it is in English (the students are Chilean). With such a wide brief, how could I resist doing something classical? The only small problem is that in all the other workshops the students are "watching movies" (film study) so my workshop couldn't be purely literary. And so I combined my love of mythology with my interest in photography. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mythography!

Yes, all you pedants out there, I know that the title suggests more the writing of myths rather than any picture taking, but contrivance has always been catchy, and Mythography is really catching on! The students have four lessons a week, two for mythology and two for photography.

Mythology

On the mythology side, the students read Greek creation myths, learn about Greek (and Roman) deities, study the myths leading up to the Trojan War, and watch the film Troy (there had to be a movie!). They do read an introduction to Homer and the Iliad beforehand in order to compare Hollywood's interpretation with the original.

The Olympian Gods
The gods lend their names to our study of mythology and the English language.

Photography

On the photography side, we learn about the composition of photographs - focal point, background, simplicity, rule of thirds, lighting, colour, lines, framing, balance and movement. These rules of composition are taught during class, and students then have the opportunity to practise taking photos around the school using these new ideas. There is also a short lesson on cinematography and film study based on Troy.

Photography
The rules of composition are a useful skill to take outside the classroom.

Language

There are also a few fun language elements in the course, such as word power and ancient Greek! The students decipher the stories behind the naming of the planets and the days of the week (Spanish and English). They also complete a reading comprehension based on Peter Jones' article "The wrong ancient gods" about the commemorative coins for the 2012 London Olympic Games. They have to design their own coins (with Greek gods, of course) and have a short lesson on the history of the Olympic Games and the use of Greek and Latin numbers in English.

Students also have the opportunity to learn the ancient Greek alphabet, as well a few appropriate transliterated words.

Greek Alphabet
Students learn Greek words which have come into English directly (e.g. athlete).
They also write their own names in ancient Greek!

Projects

In order to test the Mythography aspect of the workshop, the students complete 3 projects. Project 1 is after reading the myth of Pandora's Box. In groups, the students create their own enticing Pandora's "pythoi" (vessels). The Evils are all photographs by other photographers, while Hope is a photograph they have taken themselves using the rules of composition learnt in the course. The images all have to be linked (through subject - e.g. children, or through use of color - e.g. black & white).

Pandora's Box
The inside holds 6 photographs of children in desperate situations,
and 1 beautiful photograph of Hope, a happy, smiling child.

The main assignment is a visual and written task in which students compose and capture three images relating to the myths leading up to the Trojan War. The subject matter of these images can be any elements suggested in the myths (love, judgement, war, etc.). The students also write a paragraph on each image explaining the idea and elements of composition behind each picture.

'The Apple of Discord'
Eris' "gift" to Peleus and Thetis at their wedding.

The ultimate project is an oral presentation based on the film Troy. In pairs, students analyse a theme from the movie, looking at cinematography and character development. Hopefully all the background lessons on mythology and photography lend an insight into their analysis.

Troy
Hollywood's version of the great epic poem.

And that is Mythography, a combination of mythology and photography. I believe that the photography skills will be useful to the students for the rest of their lives, while the mythology aspects will enrich their knowledge now, and hopefully allow them to contribute interesting snippets to conversations for years to come. Or at least give them the answer to the deciding question in a pub quiz!

villa villae f. country house, villa

On a recent trip to Los Angeles, I visited the Getty Villa, a museum built to house oil tycoon, J. Paul Getty's, collection of classical antiquities. The villa is everything I dream of creating one day. It is a recreation of an ancient Roman villa, the Villa dei Papyrii, on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius in Herculaneum.

The attention to detail in the complex is amazing, right down to the mosaic on the atrium floor and the fresco in the outdoor peristyle. Each feature of the house takes its inspiration from different houses in Pompeii and Herculaneum, such as the House of the Fountain.

Jupiter

impluvium in the atrium

Central courtyard

Outer peristyle

culter -tri m. knife

I recently spent two weeks in England and, once again, I endeavoured to factor museums and ruins into my trip. I visited the Great North Museum in Newcastle which boasted an eclectic display of everything from dinosaur fossils to a Newcastle United football shirt (?). It also included unique exhibitions of ancient Roman and Egyptian artefacts.

The Roman section was largely based around Hadrian’s Wall, and focused primarily on the structure of the wall, as well as artefacts buried on site. I was enchanted with this little bone carving of a boy soldier. On closer inspection it turned out to be a beautifully crafted switchblade! I never knew that the Romans had pocket knives, but in my book, this beats a Swiss Army Knife any day.

declamatio -onis f. practice in public speaking

On Saturday 30 January the ASD Declamation Contest was held. This is an inter-schools' competition in which contestants answer a culture quiz, declaim a poem, and (for the modern languages) perform a dialogue or impromptu speech. The languages are Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Latin.

I was asked to judge the Latin Poetry section, which was quite exciting. The syllabus was chosen by Glenn Wright and included the following poems:

First Year: Catullus 5, Horace, Odes III.13, and Vergil, Aeneid IV.621-629

Second Year: Catullus 101, Horace, Odes I.5, and Vergil, Aeneid I.1-11

Third Year: Catullus 3, Horace, Odes III.2, and Vergil, Aeneid II.270-282, 289

AP Latin: Catullus 35, Horace, Odes I.22, and Vergil, Aeneid VI.450-471

To be honest, the competition was a bit stale, as there were only six contestants, all from South High. Most contestants rattled off the poem parrot-style, and failed to understand the meaning behind it. Poor old Catullus at his brother's tomb was positively delirious with joy, while the Fountain of Brundisium was barely trickling through the gloom.

It was quite challenging to judge as some of the criteria were, in my opinion, unbalanced. 15 marks were allocated to memorization, while only 7 to capturing the meaning of the poem. A student could get 3 marks for speaking at the right volume and 5 for being confident, regardless of the quality of Latin. I would have preferred more marks for the actual Latin and fewer penalties for memory loss.

I have been asked back to judge the State Finals in February. As there are no other schools which offer Latin in Alaska, it'll be the same five contestants again (one of the second years pulled out after her first poem). I hope that in the next three weeks, they can learn the meaning behind their poems and deliver them a little less like nursery rhymes, and a little more like the great poems they are.