Our second project is going to be about heroic figures of the Roman Republic (509 BC – 31 BC, plus minusve). The idea I came up with for this project is for you to find out as much as you can about your hero and produce two artifacts, a poster and a paper, from the angle that you are a screenwriter doing a script for a movie in which your hero is the central character. Assume you've got to convince a hard-boiled cynical hollywood mogul-type producer that a movie made from your script would be a blockbuster. Since your target reader won't devote a lot of time to reading or thinking, the screen-play pitch – your paper – needs to be short and pithy, something that grabs the attention and hammers home your basic idea – a page or two double spaced, normal font size. Find the central character trait manifested by your hero and devise a way to make that your theme. The poster would be a graphic composed for the same purpose around the same theme. Think in terms of sound-bites, slogans, or things like that. For purposes of the poster, assume that the common people around the movie watching world speak only Latin, while, for purposes of the paper, the elite hollywood mogul-type producer has had the finest education and can read English. Hence the writing on the poster should be in Latin.
A couple of weeks ago we talked about these heroes and made a rough allocation like this:
Paul – Cincinnatus - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnatus
Maggie – Gaius Mucius Scaevola - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mucius
Dietrich – Coriolanus - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolanus
Allison – T. Manlius Torquatus - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manlius_Torquatus
Katie – Giaus Fabricius Luscinus - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Fabricius_Luscinus
Kathleen – Horatius Cocles - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatius_Cocles
An extra one, in case somebody wants to switch (not enough information, too boring, argh, or whatever) – Lucius Junius Brutus - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Junius_Brutus There aren't any women on the short list. If you can find a famous woman and want to work with that figure, let me know. It's okay with me if you want to trade. Just keep me informed.
Please use these wiki articles as springboards. Their links are just one place to start. There is of course also Google – with or without images - using names or phrases from these articles or other sources as search strings. So far as concerns the poster aspect of the project, you're familiar with movie posters. Usually there is a strong, representative image, with a phrase or short sentence punching up whatever is likely to be most interesting. In order to find some Latin from which to create something to write on the poster, check out the relatively short Latin version for each of these heroes, among many others, in a book called Viri Illustres Urbis Romae, written by a French clergyman and academician named L'Homond in the 18th century. There are at least two copies on line, at the wikisource and at the Latin Library. There are also stories in some of the books I've got in the classroom. These are freely available for your use.
What's the objective here?
- To learn as much as you reasonably can about your character and the events in which he was involved, using your Latin reading skills and your English research skills
- To figure out what is the essential character trait of the hero and consider its value to humanity
- To use your imagination and creativity to devise a movie plot based on this hero and his character
- To use your technical and writing skills to create a successful script pitch and accompanying graphic
Accordingly, what kind of evaluation standards will be applied?
- Your products should be factually accurate.
- The interest of the reader/viewer should be stimulated and held.
- The graphic must have some Latin in it.
- Written material should conform to conventional grammatical standards, whether Latin or English.
Here is an example of some clever work by some French Latin students on a project summing up things Suetonius had to say about Julius Caesar in the medium of a typical modern magazine cover (there are more such exemplars at this site –
http://www.ac-grenoble.fr/lycee/diois/Latin/activites.html)
Deadline: Shall we say drafts due 12/5 and final products 12/12?