Day 26 was yesterday, July 17, 2012.
I led the morning optional review of the previous night’s homework. Akiva and Patrick led our students in two hours of morning drill, reading sections 1-6 of Cicero’s First Oration Against Catiline. I led a lunchtime optional review of conditional sentences and independent uses of the subjunctive.
In the afternoon, Patrick led an hour of prose composition, and I led the prose survey hour. We were back to Cicero, but this time an excerpt from the Pro Caelio. Emphasis on Cicero’s principles of elegance (elegantia), balance (concinnitas), and rhythm (numerus). Specifically, such rhetorical devices as personification (prosopopoeia), rhetorical questions, anaphora, asyndeton, tricolonic structure, and antithesis.
After the instructional day, students returned to their corners to begin work on sections 7-12 of Cicero’s First Oration Against Catiline for the next morning, and an excerpt from Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita for the afternoon.
Does all of this sound too good to be true? Tell your friends. Tell your students. Just think—You could be doing this next summer!
More soon…
Note: The opinions expressed in this blog entry are those of the blogger, and do not represent the opinions of the CUNY Latin/Greek Institute, its students, faculty, or administration.