Sunday, May 04, 2008

In a Classical State of Mind

AMICI is the Classical Association of Iowa's outreach website. Latin appears to be alive and well in the Midwest. AMICI has started a Latin teacher mentoring program and already has six mentors working with Latin teachers. This promises to be a great networking opportunity for classicists and will undoubtedly help support local programs. Be sure to check out the article "Helping Latin Programs Survive and Thrive." Even if Latin isn't endangered at your school, the tips there will help you build an even stronger program. Also, take a look at the archives of their very professional-looking newsletter. Of course, there's a placement service as well.

One clever article I enjoyed reading was "What's in a Name? Iowa Cities with Classical Roots." About 50 towns and cities in Iowa have names rooted in Classics. It occurs to me that this might make a nice project for Latin students in other states. Have you considered having your students use a map to locate places with Latin, Greek and mythological place names in your state?