UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS

FULBRIGHT COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

FALL, 2007

ELEMENTARY LATIN I:

PROFESSOR DANIEL B. LEVINE

Picture: Gold Coin of Septimius Severus (193-211 CE):

Ship loaded with wild animals for the games at Rome.

Note the great Latin motto: LAETITIA TEMPORUM

London, British Museum. Credits: Barbara McManus, 2001

WELCOME TO LATIN!

Welcome to Latin! This course will set you on your way towards getting to know the language of the Romans: the language that has given English half of its rich and colorful vocabulary. If you really want to know English, and to write it well, you must know Latin.

You have made a good choice by signing up for this class. Latin helps you to learn other languages, to think logically, and to understand grammatical principles. It is the key to understanding Roman culture, and is part of the traditional classical curriculum upon which the western world has based education for over a thousand years. It is a language of history, of lyric, epic, and philosophy. It is a language of comedy, tragedy, rhetoric, and satire; of the novel and the epitaph, the epistle, the fable and the Church. Latin helped to unite the ancient world, to bring civilization through the Dark Ages, to spread the ideas of the Renaissance. It is the language of the Law; it is the language of Medicine and the Sciences; it is the language of the intellectual.

Latin is fundamental. You will be glad to know it.

TEXTBOOK AND ASSIGNMENTS

Our textbook is a fine one: The Oxford Latin Course. This program has proven itself in hundreds of classrooms all over the world. In order to take full advantage of it, we will have daily reading assignments, and written assignments to hand in for almost every class. Try to do your homework somewhere where you can read aloud. Learning any foreign language requires you to hear the sounds the words make.

See the Schedule of Assignments for a list of daily assignments. Please note that daily quizzes may not be made up.

In order to help students stay "caught up," the Magister will assign daily reading and homework exercises for almost every class. Written homework assignments will seldom, if ever, be handed in, but are vital to the learning process. Use them to guide your in-class questions, and to prepare for your daily quizlets. Try to do your homework somewhere where you can read aloud. Learning a foreign language requires you to hear the sounds the words make. It is always a good idea to look at upcoming assignments and see what the homework will be, so you can be prepared and plan your time wisely. You might even want to work ahead.

Note that we have scheduled seven class sessions as reviews. These are very important classes. In order to prepare for them, you will need to go over exercises for all the chapters which each review session covers, and try to read as much of the text from the chapters they concern as you can. Bring Questions! There will be daily quizlets given on review days.

GRADES

Student grades will be determined on the basis of:

Students are expected to come to class prepared to read aloud, to translate, to ask informed and thoughtful questions, and to show that they have completed their homework.

The professor will attempt to assess each student's preparation in every class meeting. If a student is absent, the participation grade is 0. If the student is present and very well prepared, the grade is 95. If the student is present and less prepared, but shows good work, the grade is 85. If the student shows mediocre preparation, the grade is 75. Poor preparation earns 65. Students who come to class but are not prepared might earn 50. The professor will inform students of their participation grades at least three times during the semester.

The grading scale is as follows:

STUDY HINTS

When preparing for class, please do not write out translations of the Latin you read. Please do not write translation aids in your textbooks. Do your best to read the sentences and make sense of the grammar without these aids.

1. Read the sentence aloud in Latin.

2. Read it again, trying to ascertain the grammatical structure of the sentence (subject, verb, object, participles, prepositional phrases, etc.)

3. Look up words you do not know. Write down the definitions of the words, and note their forms.

4. Read the sentence again, putting grammar and vocabulary together to make a literal meaning.

As I said above, try to do your homework somewhere where you can read aloud. Learning a foreign language requires you to hear the sounds the words make. It is always a good idea to look at upcoming assignments and see what the homework will be, so you can be prepared and plan your time wisely. You might even want to work ahead.

FINAL EXAMINATION

Students will take a final examination after the 15th week. This examination will consist of translation from Latin into English, and English into Latin, with grammar questions. The best way to prepare for the final examination (and the daily quizzes) is to translate from Latin to English for every class, to complete every homework assignment, and memorize forms and vocabulary for each chapter. Students will be well advised to spend time reading the explanations of grammar that accompany each set of homework exercises, and to study the charts in the REFERENCE GRAMMAR the back of the textbooks.

DAILY 'QUIZLETS'

Daily Quizlets will also assess student progress. These Quizlets will come mostly from the assigned homework, text readings, grammar explanations and vocabulary charts in our textbook. These quizzes will assess how well students are learning to translate, how well they are learning new vocabulary, and how well they understand grammatical principles. The quizzes will be short (10 minutes maximum). Students who miss class will not be allowed to make up the daily quizzes, but at the end of the semester, the Magister will drop the three lowest quiz grades and/or the lowest three participation grades (total of six).

ACADEMIC HONESTY

Be honest. Cheating is NEFAS. Students will do their own work. It is O.K. to study together, but the product of student work must be individual. Don't give your homework assignments to another student to copy. Don't ask for someone else's work so that you can copy it. Students who copy others' work will suffer grade sanction. If you are not sure what academic dishonesty is all about, please check with the Office of Community Standards and Student Ethics. The professor will report all students involved in incidents of academic dishonesty to this office.

INCLEMENT WEATHER POLICY

Students may make up work missed if they cannot come to class because of inclement weather. If the University is open, we will hold scheduled classes. Please do not call to find out if we will hold class; if the University is open, class will go on.

STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

If you are registered with the Center for Students with Disabilities for the purpose of accommodation, please inform the professor before the semester begins, or in the first week of class, and bring all relevant paperwork to his office in a timely fashion.

ERRATA

The Magister will very much appreciate the discipuli who point out mistakes on the course web site. We strive to improve. Semper.

CONTACT THE MAGISTER

Daniel B. Levine

Professor, Classical Studies

Kimpel Hall 502 (office) 575-5937

Kimpel Hall 425 (Mailbox and Secretary) 575-2951

Fax: 479-575-6795

Email: dlevine@uark.edu

Office Hours: MWF 1:30-2:20 pm, and by appointment.

MY JOB/YOUR JOB

My job is to help you to learn Latin, but you will only accomplish this if, in addition to coming to every class, you work hard, and ask good, serious, and specific questions. Give your studies the time they need; it is a worthwhile investment.

 

SINT VOBIS OMNIA FAUSTA FORTUNATAQUE!