LATN 271-001: Introduction to Roman Prose Fall Semester 2010

This course polishes and completes the introduction to fundamental understanding of Latin provided by the user-friendly, reading-method Cambridge Latin Course. We will continue to read so as to strengthen reading skills, studying grammar and syntax and expanding vocabulary in Latin and English. Reading-content will extend our survey of Roman culture. You will become better and better equipped not only to read great literature as it was originally written, but also to appreciate its context and concerns. Understanding Latin also opens insight into how all languages work.

Our work, therefore, will have four main aims (plus the fifth, of having fun with them):

• to gain familiarity with basic vocabulary in common use in ancient Latin, including both the words and how they change form to reflect different grammatical functions
• to gain familiarity with Latin's basic principles for combining words to describe ideas and make meaningful statements
• to put your understanding of Latin words, their forms, and their combinations together into the synthesis of reading
• to learn from your reading about Roman cultural contexts

• Assignments will be determined by the class's progress; we will not read everything in each Stage, but we will need to master its forms and concepts in one or two class periods.
• You will become responsible for the Vocabulary Checklist for each Stage as soon as we enter upon that Stage. Begin memorizing immediately!
• You will become responsible for forms and grammar covered in each Stage as soon as we discuss the forms and concepts involved. Be sure you understand concepts discussed in class well enough to be able to apply them on your own. When things you understood in class stop making sense after you've gotten them alone (and some will: they do it to all of us occasionally), come back with questions. You must monitor your own learning attentively. The rest of us will help as much as we can, but we can only be of assistance. The only one who can learn for you is you. Practice recognizing and generating forms as soon as we come to new rules, and continue practicing old rules on new vocabulary that uses them.
• Drills keyed to each Stage will be available through Blackboard to help you master vocabulary and forms. The drills are not graded within assessment for the course. They can be taken and re-taken as many times as you like. In and of themselves, they are totally optional, but the mastery they are designed to help you gain is the objective of the course: they are worth doing regularly.
• Class-time will include short summary quizzes roughly every two weeks, around the schedule of more formal examinations and breaks. Dates to watch out for:

T 8/31	First day of OUR class: begin review! Resources: guide to pronunciation of Classical Latin, introduction to grammatical concepts
M 9/6	Labor Day: no classes - we meet Tuesday as usual.
Th 9/9	Short quiz as well as ongoing classwork.
Th 9/23	Short quiz as well as ongoing classwork.
Th 10/7	Short quiz as well as ongoing classwork.
M-T 10/11-12	Fall Break: no classes.
Th 10/14	Midterm examination.
Th 10/28	Short quiz as well as ongoing classwork.
Th 11/11	Short quiz as well as ongoing classwork.
T 11/23	Short quiz as well as ongoing classwork.
W 11/24 - Su 11/28	Thanksgiving Break: no classes.
T 12/7	Short quiz as well as ongoing classwork.
Th 12/9	Last day of our class.
T 12/14 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM	Final examination. See Loyola's Final Exam Schedule.
W 12/15	Study Day: no classes or exams till 4:15 PM.

Attendance and other policies

Language skills grow by practice. If you miss work, you lose momentum, and lost momentum blocks your growth. Class is a forum both for getting help from your colleagues and instructor and for giving help on problems you have mastered, as well as for sharing ideas and insights. Even your questions help us all to find our way through problems in an alien language. Be there. Prepared is better than unprepared, and prompt is better than late, but even unprepared attendance or late arrival is better than missing out completely - just don't disrupt your fellow students.

Since unregulated self-interest, as set forth above, doesn't always motivate quite enough, a penalty for excessive absences has been instituted. Absences shall be defined as excessive, as follows:

• Each unexcused absence beyone a total of three absences, excused or unexcused. That is, excused absences kill your budget of unexcused absences.
• Repeated chronic lateness (more than 10 minutes) shall be counted as partial absences. Nevertheless, it is better to attend even part of a class, late, than to miss it entirely. Just don't disturb your colleagues.
• Absences will be totalled over the whole semester.

Written homework, when it is to be collected in that form, is due at the beginning of class.

Quizzes and exams can be rescheduled only for truly dire and documented reasons. Bring clean, lined paper and pens that don't smear.

Write legibly and spell correctly. Thanks!

Internet resources

• The North American Cambridge Classics Project represents a consortium of Latin programs that use the Cambridge Latin textbooks. Some of the drills they've developed for use on-line are indexed at www.quia.com/pages/pvilatin1cambridge.html.
• Allen & Greenough is a reference grammar with sections on forms and syntax. Click on "Go to Table of Contents" on the page to which this link takes you, then scroll down to links by topic for each item you wish to consult. Part of the Perseus Digital Library.
• Lewis & Short On-Line offers look-up access to a detailed reference dictionary. Type in the character string for which you wish to search (preferably, the dictionary-entry form of the word you want) and "submit query". Also part of the Perseus Digital Library.
• Early Roman Calendar, an overview presented by Calendars through the Ages.
• Nuntii Latini, current news briefs in Latin. Produced by YLE, the Finnish Broadcasting Company, edited by Professor Emeritus Tuomo Pekkanen and Docent Reijo Pitkaranta of Helsinki University.
• Latin Weather Reports, produced by The Weather Underground, Inc.

Additional University resources

• Loyola's Office of Academic Advising and Support Services, on the Web and in the Sullivan Center for Student Services on the Lakeshore Campus, offers packages of advice called Academic Success Tools about things like strategies for active learning, time management, tests, reading, and note-taking. The also schedule workshops in these areas and other concerns like financial planning and picking a major. The Sullivan Center also helps provide Services for Students with Disabilities.
• The Tutoring Center (physically in the Sullivan Center; peer-counselors) and the Writing Centers (sponsored by the Department of English: graduate students with expertise in writing pedagogy; main location at Klarchek Information Commons 221, annexes in the Sullivan Center, Suite 206A, and on the Water Tower Campus, 25 East Pearson 605) both offer consultation services.

Academic honesty, a.k.a. the life's blood of the intellect:

• Any practice of academic dishonesty (cheating, plagiarism, obstructing the work of other students, etc.) perpetrated in this course will result in failure of the course. Do not do it.
• For basic principles and definitions, see the subsection on "Academic Integrity" in the General Academic Standards and Regulations and the College of Arts and Sciences' Academic Integrity Statement. The Department of Classical Studies' Policy on Academic Integrity incorporates these documents. We also recommend you consult the helpful discussion of The Use and Misuse of Source Materials, provided by Loyola's Writing Center.
• Loyola University requires that all instances of academic dishonesty must be reported to the chairperson of the department involved and to the academic Dean of the student's College.
• Learning is wholly personal: it only happens if you do it yourself. Your University record should be certifying only what has really happened.

Revised 22 July 2010 by jlong1@luc.edu
http://www.luc.edu/classicalstudies/