Dear Colleagues,

 

I trust many of you are rightfully sighing with deserved relief that the AP Latin Exam is behind you and your students. Enjoy the less stressful class days that remain!

 

Others of you are prepping for honors convocation and graduation. How wonderful to be able to celebrate the achievements of your students. Be sure to broadcast those achievements as a way to showcase your program.

 

This month’s Teaching Tip describes several aspects of MagicSchool.ai that you can employ as you and your students gear up for semester finals. Check out Lynne West’s latest insights.

A highlight of the past month for me was an evening at Union College in Schenectady, NY, where I attended an engaging lecture by W. Jeffrey Tatum, who delivered Union’s 2024 Christina Elliott Sorum Memorial Lecture. Tatum, a renowned Caesar scholar, spoke about the subject of his latest book, “I Am Antony Yet: Reading Mark Antony’s Mail.” Tatum, who teaches at Victoria University in Christchurch, New Zealand, was able to visit Union while serving as the George R. Langford Eminent Scholar at the University of South Florida for the spring semester. Union’s Hans-Friedrich Mueller studied under Tatum while completing his doctoral studies at USF. Indeed, Mueller, in introducing the speaker, praised his mentor for his dissertation advisement. Interestingly, Mueller is the author of B-C’s Caesar: Selections from his Commentarii de Bello Gallico, and Tatum is the author of the BC Latin Reader—A Caesar Reader: Selections from Bellum Gallicum and Bellum Civilem, and from Caesar’s Letters, Speeches, and Poetry.

It was my good fortune to end up seated beside Professor Tatum as the department gathered for a delicious dinner at the local Italian favorite, Scottie’s. Tatum is a delightful conversationalist and one who enjoys meeting classicists of every type from undergraduate to professor to textbook editor. Thanks to Professor Mueller and the Union College classics department for a wonderful evening.
Wishing you all the best as you wrap up the school year.

Don

 

 

Earlier this year, I wrote about a site called Magic School AI and highlighted three potentially time-saving tools within the platform. In this column, I’m focusing specifically on tools that can be used to create review activities as the school year draws to a close.

 

The Text Dependent Question tool allows educators to generate questions based on a specific text. I tested this feature by pasting an excerpt of the Pro Caelio in Latin from the online Latin Library into the field and asking it to generate a combination of comprehension and analysis questions in English. While I did not like all of the questions generated, the tool provided me with a great starting point from which to work.

 

The Jeopardy Review Game tool takes much of the hard work out of coming up with lots of review questions. A game of Kahoot or Jeopardy is part of many teacher’s review repertoires. This particular tool makes the question/answer creation process quicker. The questions and answers can be pasted easily into Kahoot or Quizlet to create a fun review activity in a moment.

 

Webb's Depth of Knowledge is a framework that categorizes tasks based on their cognitive complexity. It has four levels: recall and reproduction (basic facts), skills and concepts (application), strategic thinking (analysis and evaluation), and extended thinking (synthesis and complex problem-solving). The Depth of Knowledge Questions tool in Magic AI is great for generating questions that reflect each level of this framework. I requested questions connected to comparing the system of government in Ancient Rome with that of the United States. I really liked the variety of questions and their increasing complexity.

 

Magic School AI tools are powerful resources to streamline preparation of review activities. Try it out at magicschool.ai.

Lynne West is a veteran teacher and teacher leader in K–12 schools. She earned her teaching credentials at Santa Clara University, her master’s degree from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Los Angeles. In 2016, as a Fulbright Distinguished Teaching awardee, West studied pedagogy at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. She founded Sunodia Educational Consulting to share her passion for teaching with her fellow educators by providing creative, tailored, and patient professional development services. In addition to her consulting, currently, West serves as assistant principal for instruction at Bellarmine Prep in San Jose, CA.

A robust contingent of over four hundred classicists trekked to the historic Chase Park Plaza Royal Sonesta Hotel in St. Louis, MO, for the annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South at the invitation of Washington University in St. Louis. This number of attendees marked a post-covid record and is a harbinger for healthy attendance at future meetings.

 

Visitors to the B-C book display represented a cross-section of attendees from graduate students to full professors. The BC Latin Readers for college students beginning to read “authors,” as is usual, attracted interest as did the beginning readers and novellas. The display prominently featured B-C’s New Testament Greek series with its new additions of Level 2 texts. This elicited some thoughtful discussions of the state of Greek enrollments and the possibility of building larger enrollments by starting with the New Testament. Traupman’s beloved Conversational Latin for Oral Proficiency remains a coveted text—all copies sold out. It was a delight to meet Tallulah Trezevant, who, I was pleased to learn, is the granddaughter of my former colleague, the enthusiastic Latin teacher at The Elgin Academy, the late Katherine Trezevant! Anne Groton of St. Olaf College and longtime CAMWS secretary-treasurer purchased a large supply of B-C’s Latin and Greek phrase buttons. St. Olaf presents a button to students when they declare classics as their major. Anne was also purchasing buttons to give as a token of gratitude to those who participate in the CAMWS oral history project.

 

 

 

CAMWS stalwarts filled the ballroom with spirited conversation as they enjoyed a delicious dinner. CAMWS orator Tom Keeline of Washington University in St. Louis once again impressed the gathering as he delivered from ex memoria the Latin ovationes for three worthy recipients: Laura McClure, Christopher Nepa, and Robert Holschuh Simmons. Keeline’s delivery is all the more impressive when one realizes that his wife was about to deliver a baby at any moment that weekend!

 

Hats off to CAMWS president Andromache Karanika of the University of California at Irvine. In introducing Karanika, master of ceremonies Vassiliki Panoussi, the College of William and Mary, shared that that very afternoon Karanika had been honored with a full professorship—what fitting way to top off her service as president! The presidential address proved to be a model for a banquet speech—accessible for all the audience, of appropriate length, scholarly, and peppered with good humor, including Karanika singing! Her discussion of the Homeric moments of a “wonder to behold” proved a “wonder to hear”! Brava!

 

 

 

Having previously visited St. Louis several times, I kept my explorations at CAMWS to the neighborhood of the hotel—the vibrant Central West End. Three blocks from the hotel stands the world’s largest chess piece in the front plaza of the World Chess Hall of Fame. I took the recommendation of Greg Daugherty of Randolph Macon College to heart and checked out the nearby Straub’s Market, “serving the Central West End since 1948.” Greg proclaimed it “Whole Foods on steroids”! I thoroughly enjoyed checking out its wares. Indeed, it’s a beautiful store!

 

 

 

Hope to see you next year when CAMWS meets in Illinois at the invitation of the University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana.

 

Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers is pleased to be working on a full lineup of new texts to align with the College Board's announced AP Latin curriculum changes. We will offer our acclaimed Pharr-style student textbooks, comprehensive workbooks, notebooks, and an online component (LUMINA) to help teachers and students prepare for the exam. Our books will include all of the required readings and additional selections chosen by expert teacher-scholars. Usability features, such as glossaries, frequent-vocabulary lists, a rhetorical device appendix, and more will help teachers and students move quickly and with confidence through the readings.

 

Watch here for updates and previews of the new materials. If you would like to receive email updates announcing finalized book contents, print dates, and exam copy releases, please fill out this form.

The African Classics Network is happy to announce the 3rd International Classics Conference of Ghana (ICCG) and their Call for Papers entitled: "Classics Beyond Borders."
DATE: 18-20 September 2024
DEADLINE: 31 May 2024
For more information and to contact for enquiries,
visit the Events page on the ACN website.

 

 

Plenary
Opening Keynote, Craig Williams, author, A Martial Reader: Selections from the Epigrams

 

Session 2
“Teaching Latin through Song” David Pellegrino, author, forthcoming Lumina: Pliny and Vergil Selections, Catullus Vocabulary Cards for AP Selections, Cicero and Horace Vocabulary Frequency Lists for AP Selections, and coauthor with Dennis De Young of Caesar and Vergil AP Vocabulary Cards

 

Saturday, June 29, 2024
Session 8
“An Asynchronous Resource for AP Latin” Live and Virtual, Bridget Dean PhD, President, Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, Inc.

 

 

Edited by Marie Carducci Bolchazy