CTCWeb Showcase

Academic Papers & Presentations

Latin Assistant: A Windows Interface for William Whitaker's WORDS
by Alexei Grishin, IN REBUS
Grishin’s downloadable application works with CTCWeb’s most popular program, WORDS Latin-to-English dictionary by William Whitaker. This application provides a graphical user interface (GUI) for WORDS. With Latin Assistant, WORDS users can explore the WORDS dictionary, save the dictionary entries they find, and locate the translation of the Latin word for which they are looking more quickly and easily.

What Happened to Latin Among the Romans?

by Douglas Domingo-Forasté, California State University Long Beach
In What Happened to Latin Among the Romans?, Domingo-Forasté examines the experience of Los Angeles High and one popular perception of Latin teaching from 1971 to suggest ways colleges and universities can help restore Latin in public secondary schools that formerly taught it by the use of cooperative education. He proposes a partnership of schools of post-secondary Classics departments and public high schools to return Latin to schools with traditions of teaching the language.

Jeeps and Hummers in Antiquity? Crossover Vehicles and Conspicuous Consumption

by Elizabeth Tylawsky, Norwich Free Academy
In Jeeps and Hummers in Antiquity?, Tylawsky demonstrates through the letters of the Roman statesman Cicero, the poetry of the Roman poet Horace’s, and historical facts how conspicuous consumption appeared as a public-relations tool in the 1st century CE. Tylawsky focuses her investigation on the modes and styles of transportation the rich and famous of Rome used to flaunt their affluence.

Veni, Vidi, Vici: Caesar vs. the Helvetii

by John Hammel, Moses Brown School
Edgy camera work merges with ancient Latin script in Hammel’s Veni, Vidi, Vici to evoke the Götterdämmerung wrought by Rome and the steely generalship of Julius Caesar in Book 1 of Julius Caesar's De Bello Gallico. Hammel combines heavy metal music, model soldiers, and gritty commentary in Latin and English to dramatize Caesar’s crushing defeat of the Gallic tribe, the Helvetii.

The Latin Teacher: A Primer for Survival and Success

by James Hedrick, Millbrook High School, and Camille Hedrick,  Potomac Falls High School
In The Latin Teacher, Hedrick and Hedrick rely on humor and experience to outline the problems of new teachers, and they proffer concrete solutions to make the first-year teaching experience easier. They use the characters “Nellie Newbie” and “Vera Veteran,” to exemplify the naiveté of the new teacher and the wisdom of the veteran. Through these characters’ interactions they demonstrate successful strategies for professional mentoring relationships.

Disco ut doceam

by Julian Morgan, J-Progs, Derby Grammar School and Medusa
In Disco ut doceam, Morgan teaches educators strategies for using the digital wizardry of information technology in the classroom. An author and publisher of Classics software, Morgan offers teachers the opportunity to gain the contemporary skills needed to prepare outstanding Internet-based materials for daily instructional use.

In the Arena

by Casey M., Cresthill Middle School
In the Arena by Casey M., produced when he was a student at Acres Green Elementary School in Colorado, provides a straightforward analytic model for other students to follow. Driven by a passion for gladiators, Casey, currently a student at Cresthill Middle School, researched the ancient pugilists through interviews and Internet searches. The product is a report that is organized according to a series of questions that other students can use to pursue their passions and that is packed with information. Casey offers an entertaining and insightful posting that all of us – students and teachers – can learn from.

Jupiter vs. Belatucadrus

by Blair Gormley, Potomac High School, VA
Gormley explores the impact that the non-Roman gods Belatucadrus, Cocidius, Isis and Mithras had on Roman Britain. Extending his exploration, he then explains the extent to which the Roman gods Mars, Juno and Jupiter were worshipped in Roman Britain. Archaeological evidence is his support and he names specific sites and monuments that back up his claims. Using the worship of gods as his central axis, Gormley is able to make larger claims about the relationship between the center of the Roman Empire and its outposts.

Meet the Teachers

by Camille Hedrick, Potomac Falls High School
Hedrick describes her research concerning the importance of mentoring for new teachers in public high schools. She follows the progress of five new teachers and highlights their interactions with veteran teachers and administrators. Citing increased student achievement and teacher retention, she indicates some of the many benefits that mentoring can have on a school system in general.

How Democratic Was the Roman Republic?
by Allen Ward, University of Connecticut
Ward argues that the Roman Republic flatly failed the litmus test for a democracy, countering modern historians who claim otherwise. To support his argument Ward describes the mechanics of the Roman government and how Rome’s political machine kept members of a wealthy ruling elite in control of the Republic through undemocratic voting arrangements and other high-handed tactics.

The Letters of Pliny the Younger: Teaching Pliny’s Correspondence in the Intermediate Latin Setting
by Gregory Starikovsky, Columbia University
Starikovsky describes how he encourages his intermediate Latin students not just to read the letters of Pliny the Younger as required text for translation, but to decode them for the insights they offer into life and politics in the ancient Roman world.

Maffeo Vegio and His Aeneid XIII
by Peter Schaeffer, University of California, Davis
Schaeffer describes how numerous authors in the fifteenth century took up the quill to rewrite or expand Vergil’s Aeneid in ways that reflected the morals and tastes of their time. Schaeffer focuses on Maffeo Vegio’s “best selling” attempt to pick up where Vergil left off in the saga of the hero Aeneas.

You Can Do That with PowerPoint?
by Ruth Breindel, Moses Brown School.
Breindel provides two sets of step-by-step instructions for creating PowerPoint presentations for use in the Latin classroom. Breindel uses text and images to instruct Latin teachers on the development of PowerPoint presentations they can use in class to reinforce Latin learning. Instruction sets include step-by-step instructions for inserting clip art, animating objects, inserting text boxes, selecting customer colors for slide backgrounds, and positioning text and images..

What Happened to Deus ex Machina after Euripides?
by Akiko Kiso, Kitami Institute of Technology, Japan.
Kiso provides a thorough analysis of Euripides' use of the deus ex machina, the appearance of a god to bring a sudden and fortuitous resolution to a problem, in his later plays. Kiso looks at Euripides' plays Electra, Ipheginia Taurica, Helena, Ion, and Orestes. The plot of each play is described, as is the anagnorisis, or recognition of the kinship of one character by another through the aid of a god.

Latinitas in Lexington
by Terence Tunberg, University of Kentucky.
Tunberg describes a summer program at the University of Kentucky in Lexington in which participating educators live for nine days in a virtually all-Latin environment. Latin is the only language used to communicate verbally and in writing. The program places emphasis on the use of spoken Latin and the reading of a full spectrum of Latin literature, from the Roman republic to the present.

Greek Too: The Recovery of Greek in American Schools
by Richard L.S. Evans, St. Thomas’ Episcopal School, Houston, TX.
Evans describes the historical role of Latin and Greek in Classics curricula and a means by which Latin teachers can reintroduce ancient Greek into modern curricula via Latin class. Evans refers to this method of including the study of ancient Greek in Latin curricula as “Greek-by-inclusion.” Evans reinforces his advice and guidance on his “Greek-by-inclusion” method with links to educational Website containing resources to support the introduction of ancient Greek into the modern Latin classroom.

Educating Telemachus: Lessons in Fénelon's Underworld
by Ippokratis Kantzios, University of South Florida.
Kantzios examines Fénelon’s novel The Adventures of Telemachus, Son of Ulysses. In his paper, Kantzios provides a brief synopsis of the Fénelon’s book and seeks to answer why Fénelon, a Catholic clergyman, “chooses a pagan story to articulate his aphorisms, and, in particular, why he deems a katabasis, a visit to the underworld, to be a significant element in a prince’s [Telemachus] preparation for the throne.”

Manilius: Poetry & Science After Vergil
by Mary Pendergraft, Wake Forest University.
Pendergraft introduces the Astronomica of Manilius and discusses the poem’s place both in the traditions of didactic poetry and in the context of ancient scientific and philosophical attitudes toward the stars. Pendergraft provides numerous exerts from the poems of Vergil, Lucretius, and Manilius, in Latin and in translation, to demonstrate each author’s poetic style and scientific understanding of the composition and movement of astral bodies.

The Movie "Gladiator" in Historical Perspective
by Allen Ward, University of Connecticut.
In his report, Ward reveals the movie’s faults, which include radically compressed timelines, misquoted Latin texts, and the casting of a right-handed, brunette actor as the emperor Commodus, who actually was left-handed and blonde. Ward points out many inaccuracies in the movie and provides an extensive bibliography that includes both ancient and modern source materials to which students can refer to learn the true history for themselves.

The Homeric Gods and Xenophanes' Opposing Theory of the Divine
by Ursula De Young, Harvard University.
De Young describes the “theological skepticism” of the ancient Greek poet Xenophanes who argued that Homer was mistaken in his promotion of a divine pantheon of anthropomorphic gods. Xenophanes rejected polytheism and wrote that there was only one omnipotent god.

The Columns of Greece, Rome & Providence RI
by Megan Billings, Moses Brown School, RI.
Billings provides descriptions and photographic examples of columns from the Greek and Roman orders, including, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan, and composites. Rather than travel to Greek or Rome to find columns to photograph, she found numerous examples at the Swan Point Cemetery in Providence, RI.

Online Latin Drills
by Prof. Margaret B. Phillips, University of Missouri at St. Louis.
In Online Latin Drills, Phillips provides 47 online drills to reinforce students' knowledge of the material they learned in her Latin class. Using multiple choice and fill-in-the- blank formats, Phillip's drills build students' knowledge of Latin noun and verb endings, singular and plural endings, as well as vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. These drills accompany the Oxford Latin Course*, Second Edition, chapter by chapter.

Secret Code or Language of the Heart
by Prof. Peter Schaeffer, University of California - Davis.
Schaeffer relates details of Johann Gottfried SeumePreface to Some Rather Difficult Places in Plutarch, which was written not in German but in Latin. Schaeffer notes the many illusions in Seume.

Have We Homer's Iliad (Again)
by Prof Steve Reece, Saint Olaf College, MN. In Have We Homer's Iliad (Again), Reece resolves to answer the age-old question of whether Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are orally dictated texts transcribed millennia ago during a spoken performance or whether the texts are the result of many rewritings and revisions by countless contributors. To support his argument, Reece offers evidence that includes the linguistic unity of the Iliad and Odyssey narratives, the absence of multiple versions of these texts, and numerous metrical, textual, and factual errors in the texts themselves.

Ancient Mesopotamia
by Claire Donovan, Marcia Smith, Ann Marie Dlott, Riitta Bolton, Neal Riley, Rita Innamorati, Laura Sweeney, and Terri Caffelle, Shrewsbury Public Schools, MA. Ancient Mesopotamia provides information on the geography of the region and the important role that geographical location plays in the success of a civilization. Students are also introduced to the culture of Mesopotamia through their monumental buildings, the ziggurats, their clothing, their government and their religion. Some class activities are suggested.

Ancient Greece & You
by Joe Greenwald, Champlain Valley Union High School, VT.
Ancient Greece & You includes works by Greenwald's students that resulted from Greenwald's class of the same name. The students' works cover topics from ancient Greek philosophy, literature, social studies, and the Greek language. Greenwald's class examined philosophical reflections on authority, beauty, consciousness, death, and democracy, covering the works of Socrates, Plato, Locke, Kant, and Descartes, among others.

The Olympic Truce - Myth and Reality
by Harvey Abrams, State College, PA. Abrams, an Olympic historian, invites students to become historians and uncover the truth about the ancient Olympic truce, the ekecheiria, during which athletes and spectators at the games refrained from fighting even if their city-states were at war. Abrams provides facts about the ancient Olympic games, their location, their religious origins, and how the hosts of the ancient games, and even Roman emperors, violated the truce on numerous occasions.

Patterns of Cohesion & Discontinuity as a Teaching Tool for Reading Caesar and Cicero in the Second Year
by Prof. Donka D. Markus, University of Michigan. Markus describes "chunking" as a method for raising students' awareness of the processes involved in language comprehension. Markus discovered that "chunking" to teach her Latin students not only helped them become better readers, but also helped them to be more appreciative of the aesthetic beauty of Latin prose.

The Conflict Between Cato and Scipio
by Richard L. Trumbo, St. Catherine's School, Richmond, VA. Trumbo reports on the ideological schism that made bitter political enemies of the Roman Republic's two most influential politicians, Cato the Elder and Scipio Africanus. This clash of polar ideals led to the "gutter politics" that brought the Roman Republic to its knees.

Gournia, Archanes and Ayia Triada: Palaces or Not?
by Ioannis Georganas, University of Nottingham. Georganas examines and interprets the architectural remains of the ancient Greek sites of Gournia, Archanes, and Ayia Triada on the island of Crete to determine which of these sites qualifies as a true Minoan palace.

The Fables of Phaedrus: Reading Exercises in Latin
by Dr. Dainis Zeps, University of Latvia. Zeps provides 38 Latin animal fables written by Phaedrus. Each word in a fable is linked to its dictionary definition, which includes the English translation and morphology of the word. A syntactical section accompanies the Latin text and definitions.

Galen & Circulation
by Matthew Megill, Dartmouth College, NH. Megill describes how Galen's philosophical opposition to the Stoic view of the heart distracted him from understanding the heart's role as a circulatory pump.

Roman Board Games
by Wally J. Kowalski. Kowalski provides descriptions, directions, and the history of eight (8) board games played by the Romans, including knucklebones, dice, Roman chess, and Roman checkers.

Fix-ing Latin
by Elizabeth Jones, Christopher Newport University, Newport News, VA.
Jones provides drills on suffixes and infixes which represent the chief morphological elements of Latin. Handouts showing the possibilities for noun, adjective, pronoun and verb suffixes and infixes for use through the end of a 201 course in college or the third year of high school are provided.

Teaching Latin with a Feminist Consciousness
by Alice Garrett, Haverford High School, Havertown, PA.
Garrett's paper examines the way feminism is transforming Classical Studies. Garrett offers her opinion on three popular Latin textbooks and the need for these texts to achieve "gender balance" in their treatment of men and women in the instruction they provide on learning Latin and learning about Roman world.

The Classical Symposium in Greek Art
by Darcie Hutchison, Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO.
Click here to read an interview with Darcie in The Gazette. Hutchison provides a thorough description of a typical symposium including its guests, entertainment and drinking games. She links her text to images on a variety of ancient Greek vases depicting symposia.

Women in the Oikos: The Stranger Within
by Catherine Colegrove, Canterbury School, Ft. Wayne, IN.
Colegrove takes a close look at the "women" plays of Aristophanes and how his writings exaggerated the suspicions of new husbands over the conduct of their young brides.

Triangulation: A Demonstration that Classics Underpin Modern Science & Math
by UniStates, LLC, Alexandria, VA.
Triangulation reveals that a 2,500 year-old Aristotelian principal is a critical factor in UniStates' new technology, Reflexive Materials Technologies™ (RMT™).

Delphi's Role in Greek History
by Holly Page, St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley. Holly's paper examines the city of Delphi and its role in Greek history. There are links to images and text throughout the paper to support Holly's examination of Delphi's impact on the ancient world.

Thetis: Protective Mother or Dominated Wife?
by Jennifer Powers, SUNY Albany. Jennifer’s paper focuses on the minor goddess, Thetis, as the faithful mother of Achilles and as the powerful shape shifter who wards off cosmic destruction. A comparison of ancient Greek authors’ representations of Thetis is followed by the interpretation of Thetis’ appearance on ancient Greek vases.

The Heart of the Matter: Gods, Grief, and Freedom in Aeschylus' Orestia by Michael Deschenes, College of the Holy Cross, Worchester, MA. A look at the external expression of internal desire by figures in Greek tragedy. Throughout Mr. Deschenes' paper are direct links to the Perseus resources he mentions in his paper, such as text and lexicon entries.

Corinthian Pottery and Coinage (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader for viewing) by Carolyn Walker, St. Louis Community College - Florissant Valley. Included with the paper is the course syllabus and complete assignment for which the paper was written. Educators will find the syllabus helpful in developing their own assignments.

The Iconography of Panathenaic Amphoras (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader for viewing) by Jessica Moore, University of Wisconsin. Jessica Moore wrote her paper for Prof. Nicholas Cahill’s Art History 301 - Greek Painting.

The Perseus Project: Implications for Learning and Teaching (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader for viewing)
by Joan E. Hughes, Ph.D., Educational Psychology, Michigan State University.

Online Exercises & Software

Online Latin Drills
by Prof. Margaret B. Phillips, University of Missouri at St. Louis. In Online Latin Drills, Phillips provides 47 online drills to reinforce students' knowledge of the material they learned in her Latin class. Using multiple choice and fill-in-the- blank formats, Phillip's drills build students' knowledge of Latin noun and verb endings, singular and plural endings, as well as vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension.

WORDS Latin-to-English Dictionary
by William Whitaker. WORDS is an automated Latin dictionary. The software provides definitions and morphologies (gender, case, tense, mood, etc.) for approximately 20,000 Latin words. WORDS runs on DOS, Windows 95/98/NT, and Linux systems as a console program.

Electronic Resources for Latin
by Paul Barrette, McMasters University, Hamilton, ON. These are programs that help students learn Latin vocabulary and they include flash card drills, fill-in the blank drills, a searchable Latin-English and English-Latin lexicon, and a program that generates a Julian calendar.

Lee's Roman Numeral Converter
by Lee K. Seitz. Simply enter a number or Roman numeral in the appropriate space below and click the appropriate Convert button. The number/Roman numeral you entered and its equivalent will be displayed.

Perseus Installation Instructions by Pamela Schmidt. Here are two methods for installing the four CD-ROMs that comprise the Perseus 2.0 software on a hard drive. Schmidt provides the methods as a result of her own experience installing the program. Schmidt's instructions assume that the user is familiar with Macintosh computers.

RAM: Reading Acceleration Machine
Software developed by Prof. Claude Pavur, Classical Studies Department, Saint Louis University. RAM is primarily designed to help foreigh-language learners practice texts through the sequential delivery of word groups.

Roots of English: an Etymological Dictionary
Software developed by Prof. Eugene Cotter from the Classics Department at Seton Hall University as part of a Curricular Development Initiative grant from the New Jersey Institute for Collegiate Teaching and Learning (NJICTL) and the Seton Hall Center for Academic Technology.

Riddles, Brainteasers & Trivia
What's in a Name?
20 fun Classics trivia questions by Doug Ryan, Classics Teacher at Hingham High School in Massachusetts. Mr. Ryan hopes you and your friends enjoy the pursuit of this Classics trivia.

Free Images of Greece & Rome
Maecenas: Images of Ancient Greece and Rome
By Leo C. Curran. Maecenas currently has over 1,000 images that may be used for any non-commercial purpose. Maecenas is funded by grants from the Classical Association of the Empire State and the Classical Association of the Atlantic States.

Original Artwork
Three Original Drawings
By Kellie K. Owens

Poetry
Five Original Poems
by Pat Dipillo, Acton-Boxborough High School

The Voyages of Perseus
A poem by Jerry Osterweild, PhD., Tampa Museum of Art.

= Bronze Chalice winner. = Silver Chalice winner. = Gold Chalice winner.