There’s No Place Like ROME!

Appropriate for Grades 9 to 12

A maiden from the vanished past, Whose hallowed halls lie dark and still - In might and letters unsurpassed, Now withered on her seven hills. Spectral players stalk her stages, A ghostly audience lends its ear - Shrouded in the dust of ages, Lines that none alive can hear. From ancient slumber Rome arises, To share her secrets and surprises!

From its humble beginnings as a small Latin settlement, Rome rose to become a vast, culturally diverse world empire. Rome’s cultural and political contributions bridge the gulf of time and have become ingrained into the fabric of modern society. Yet, what do we really know about the civilization that has given us so much?

There’s No Place Like ROME! is an interdisciplinary project for grades 9-12 that is designed to introduce students to the history, people, and literature of Rome. Using primary and secondary source documents, students will study Rome’s mythical foundations, its transition to a republic and empire, and finally “experience” its end at the hands of the Visigoths in the early fifth century.

There’s No Place Like ROME! engages students in close readings of Roman history and literature. They will create products that employ multiple learning styles such as dramatic skits, debates, time lines, maps, eyewitness accounts of historical events, biographies, interviews, letters, poetry, songs and art. For the final product students will create a “news magazine” and books that demonstrate group as well as individual learning experiences.

There’s No Place Like ROME! is driven by the national standards of several disciplines such as Social Studies, Geography, Mathematics, and English Language Arts. The project includes a comprehensive introduction that assesses and augments students’ background knowledge, three distinct but interrelated learning phases that challenge students to demonstrate their understanding by producing authentic products, and a culminating event in which students exhibit their learning and creativity to an audience of their peers and other invited guests.

• Phase I: Foundations and Republic: 753 BC-49 BC: Students will research a topic from the history of early Rome and create products that demonstrate their learning, such as an on-camera “interview” with Romulus or a peace treaty between Rome and Carthage. Finally, students will produce a project timeline of events that will include images and explanations.

• Phase II: Empire and Decline: 48 BC-410 AD: Students will research a topic from the history of the Roman Empire and will create a product that demonstrates their learning. Products may include a multimedia report of the events in the civil war between Octavian and Antony or a graphic representation comparing and contrasting the Emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. Finally, students will add the new knowledge they gained to the project timeline.

• Phase III: The People and Literature of Rome: Students will “meet” Romans from the republican and empire periods through reading Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans. The will publish illustrated biographies based on this research. They will also read selections from Virgil’s Aeneid, Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Lucan’s Pharsalia and compose poems or songs imitating their content and rhetorical style.

The culminating event, Rome, Sweet Rome! is an opportunity for students to celebrate their achievement by presenting and displaying their learning through multimedia and other technologies to an audience of their peers and other invited guests.