Lesson 26 - Looking to the future

Incredible to think, but Classics Club is now nearing its end. It's been a packed year, full of language, culture, trips, creativity and (best of all) enthusiasm. So, first of all, a bit of admin: here are our dates for the next few weeks:

19th June - test
26th June - INSET (so no Classics Club)
3rd July - possible trip date
10th July - our very last CC lesson!

I hope this clears up any confusion about dates (especially that INSET!). And just a reminder, the test (WHICH IS NEXT WEEK!!) will take the following format:

Part 1: Pick the correct Latin word to complete the sentence
Part 2: Translate an unseen block of text (including using vocabulary that you won't have seen before, given to you with the text)
Part 3: Classical culture multiple choice

infans leonem amat

We also cleared up a language loose end today: third declension nouns, those awkward ones that don't end in us/a/um like most of the others. We had a look at leo, infans and fur. You can now see how this works on our Latin grammar page. 

Next, onwards and upwards with another CLC translation about the arrival of actors in Pompeii. Your speed as a group at tackling chunks of Latin text has improved fantastically. This bodes really well for those of you who are thinking of carrying on your Latin studies in Year 9. Well done.

And in case we hadn't crammed enough into one lesson, we also started to think about The Odyssey, the greatest poem ever written (IMHO, at least). Here's a great synopsis...

Followed by Part II...

...and Part III

Lesson 25 - Epic work...

Underline those verbs if it helps

Back to our old friends Felix, Caecilius and Clemens this week, and a heart-warming story of thwarted kid-napping. We're getting a little faster at unseen translation, but we'll get even faster if we always remember the golden rules, most importantly to ignore what your English-speaking brain is telling you. Don't go for the subject first. Find the VERB as it has loads of important clues about what is happening, when it's happening, who and how many people govern the verb. Parse the verb first, and then look for a subject (nominative) and then any object (accusative). Make a rough translation, then look for any other bits & bobs floating around (e.g. adverbials). Put them in, then polish up your translation. If you want to have another look at the translation, you can find an interactive version here.

Then a real treat. A twenty minute overview of The Iliad and why it's such an amazing piece of work.

1. It's very, very old and very, very long. Pretty impressive if you think that it was originally not written down but passed on through an oral tradition.

2. Some of the language is stunning, including the innovative use of similes and metaphors, setting images of war and peace in contrast to comment on the savagery (and futility?) of war.

3. It set the gold standard for both the war poetry and horror genres for the next few thousands of years.

4. It provided the inspiration for Troy, a film based on the Trojan War. Brad Pitt as Achilles - oh yes!

And, because we didn't have time to watch it in class, here's how the Trojan War ended (courtesy of Odysseus' brains, not Achilles' muscles)...

For your home task, start revising from that crib sheet you got in the lesson. The test date is 19th June.

Lesson 24 - Can we really call this a lesson?!

Perhaps better described as a fun end to this half term, this 'lesson' we all made mosaics. Having said that, we did learn that:

• the stuff in between tiles is called grout
• mosaic tiles ('tesserae') do not taste nice, despite their startling similarity to sweets
• it's best to duck when cutting tesserae
• Max is a perfectionist
• Classics Club should at no point enter the X-Factor

Here's some of the amazing artwork...

...for Slash (aka Kacper)

...for Jamellia

...for Nailaa

The stunning results of Max's perfectionism