Lesson Modules on the Late Roman Republic

By Lilith Waters

Dr. Jack Pesda

“Roman Nights”/Ancient Rome

October 13, 1999

Context Clue Lesson/KWL+ on Slaves and Masters

When reading, it is important for students in the middle to upper elementary grade levels to figure out the meanings of unknown words in context or within the passage. Sometimes a dictionary or pictures are not available in textbook while the student is reading; therefore, it might be necessary to learn the meaning of a word in context from the clues that are provided in the passage. In addition, looking up a word in the dictionary during the reading process interrupts the thought processes of the reading and can be annoying; therefore, teaching students how to figure out word meanings without resorting to a dictionary can improve their reading level. It has been proven that many excellent readers use this strategy for understanding vocabulary and the meaning of a passage, whereas poor readers are less inclined to use this strategy and sound the word out, or even ignore it altogether.

As a result, I have chosen context clues and the KWL+ procedure to encourage students to use their prior knowledge of slaves and masters in Ancient Rome to complete the assignment. For each sentence, I would instruct the student to read the phrase, the sentence, or the passage from beginning to end and ask themselves the following questions: “What is the meaning of the underlined words? Does the meaning of the word make sense in that sentence? What clues did you use in the phrase, sentence, paragraph to figure out the meaning of the word?” Then, I would model sentences using this procedure until the student felt comfortable enough to complete the assignment on his or her own. My articles for this particular lesson module included the following references: “The Early Christians: Throwing Christians to the Lions – Fact or Fiction” on the website http://myron.sju.edu/romeweb; “Masters and Slaves,” from Ancient Rome by Simon James; “The Slave Uprising of Spartacus and the Success of Crassus with the Intervention of Pompey,” by Greg Ong, on the Website http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/9040; and “An Arena of Terror and Torture,” in the book Super Treasury of Amazing Knowledge. (Examples of the context clue vocabulary lessons from these stories can be located on the following pages. Even though I wasn’t supposed to, I’ve also enclosed a copy of the last-mentioned article, which you may find to be a little humorous and appropriate for my fifth and sixth grade reading-level students.)

Next, I used the KWL+ procedure to determine what students already know about slaves and masters in Ancient Rome and gave them an opportunity to formulate questions about this topic. This gives students a purpose for reading and allows them to discover the answers to questions about Roman slaves/masters that are important to them and increases the enjoyment of reading; for example, I would ask the students a question: How do you think Ancient Romans rewarded good slaves? How do you think the Ancient Romans punished slaves who revolted, and condemned criminals? I would list all of their responses under K, which means “What they already know.” Then I would ask them the following question: What do you want to know about the treatment of slaves/criminals in the Roman Republic/Empire? The students would then list their questions in another column under W, which means “What they want to learn.”

At this point, they would silently read all of the previously mentioned articles, such as “Throwing Christians to the Lions: Fact or Fiction,” which is provided as a sample lesson. Afterwards, I would ask them, “What did you learn about slaves and Roman masters that you didn’t know before?” I would write every student response under the column L, which means “Learned.” Hopefully the students would be able to provide me with responses that indicate that they understand the main ideas and supporting details of the article. (For example, “Romans killed the Christians, because they held strange, unpatriotic beliefs and embarrassed the Emperor.” “Condemned criminals and Christians were killed more often than gladiators, because gladiators were expensive to train and were popular.” “Christians were burned alive to light Nero’s garden.”

As an after-reading activity, my students would return to their lists and answer and check-off any questions that were answered from the articles and determine which ones still need to be answered. Unanswered questions serve as the basis for further learning. Then I would assign a journal-writing activity to reinforce their understanding of the new concepts. “Were the Ancient Romans’ negative reactions to the Christians logical given their beliefs?” My students will hopefully use their newly-acquired knowledge and previous experience with the topic to answers these questions. After the reading and writing activity, the students will make a votive offering on page 36 of the activity book, The Roman Empire: The Hands-On Approach to History. They can pretend that they are Ancient Romans offering the votive, an animal offering, to their favorite god.

Context Clue Direct Instruction Lesson on Ancient Rome

Today, you are going to learn some words and read some articles related to the study of slaves and masters in Ancient Rome. I’m going to teach you these words by showing you how to figure out word meaning in sentences through context clues. A context clue is the setting in which a word occurs. The context clues or setting could be a phrase, a clause, a sentence, a paragraph, or even a whole passage that provides you with a clue as to the meaning of an unknown word. In order to use context clues, you should read to the end of a sentence (further, if necessary), think about the meaning of the unknown word from the clues given, and guess the meaning of the unknown word from the clues that are provided.

Let’s read the following practice sentences aloud. Let’s see if you can figure out the meanings of the underlined words from the clues given in the following sentences.

1) The Roman Senate was determined to find a competent, or proven, general who could defeat Spartacus and his followers.

2) As a young man from Thracia, Spartacus worked in the fields of his homeland; however, he eventually served in the Roman auxiliary.

3) Christians went to the catacombs to worship and to bury the dead.

Now try to guess the meaning of the underlined words in the following sentences on your own. If you need help with any of the problems, just let me know and I will assist you.

1) Blood sports, such as munera, degraded Roman society.

2) Spartacus wanted to escape from Italy and the Roman legions, but his followers thwarted his decision.

3) Many Roman slaves were captured through piracy and war.

Sometimes, you may not be able to figure out the meaning of an unknown word because there aren’t enough clues to figure it out from information given. If you can’t use context clues, you will have to use another method to learn the meaning of a word, but first try to guess what the unknown word means based on your knowledge of Ancient Rome.

1) The colonate became popular among some patricians as a result of Spartacus’ revolt.

2) Millions of clients met wealthy Roman citizens at the Forum.

Context Clues on the Ancient Rome Unit

Patricians became lazy and rich as the spoils of Roman victory, slaves and prisoners of war, became sources of free labor.

If they’d tried, the Roman army could have easily suppressed Spartacus and his followers, but they weren’t ordered to stop the slave revolt by the Senate until 72 BC.

The Senate vetoed the bill even though Congress passed it.

Condemned prisoners and slaves were fodder for the gladiators and the lions in the Roman arena.

Roman masters freed their slaves with a rod called a vindicta. During the ceremony, they wore the Cap of Liberty, which is a symbol of freedom even in modern times.

A slave helped his master to put on a toga, which is a heavy, uncomfortable garment that is difficult to keep clean.

Freedmen were ex-slaves who earned their liberty from their former masters but usually continued to work for them.

Male citizens, but not women or slaves, elected magistrates in the city-states of the Roman Empire.

Clients requested favors from wealthy patrons; in exchange for granting their favors, they voted for patrons during Roman elections.

Wealthy masters usually owned slaves in Ancient Rome.

Ancient Rome was not a democracy, because not everyone was allowed to vote during elections.

Some criminals were executed or killed outside the walls of Rome along the Appian Way, the main road that goes away from Rome.

The Spartacus Slave Revolt was a precursor to problems between Crassus and Pompey at a later date.

The Romans persecuted the Christians for being unpatriotic by throwing them to the lions.

Making sacrifices to the gods was abhorrent to the Christians. Hungry beasts mauled or tore apart Christians in the Roman arena.

Christians were given a chance to renounce their beliefs, but they refused and were sentenced to death as a result.

The Christian martyrs made the emperor look foolish, for they were more than willing to die for their beliefs.

At the Colosseum, the emperors made a spectacle out of criminals to entertain the Roman citizens.

After many centuries of being persecuted by the Romans, the Christians were finally granted the legal right to worship as they pleased when Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan.

KWL+ on the Early Christians

Main ideas: The Roman government policy of persecuting Christians wasn’t consistent among government officials. Many times, Romans tolerated Christians but considered them strange, antisocial, impious, and unpatriotic. Roman emperors Nero, Decius, and Diocletian were famous for persecuting Christians. Constantine I eliminated the persecution of Christians.

Purpose Questions: Why wasn’t the Roman policy of persecuting the Christians consistent? Who eliminated the policy of persecuting the Christians? How did Nero persecute the Christians? Why were the Christians considered strange and unpatriotic? Were the Ancient Romans justified in their negative treatment of the Christians?

What do you Know about Romans’ treatment of Christians?

etc.

What do you want to Learn about it?

etc.

Silent Reading: Since we’ve just discussed the topic of Christians and determined what you already know about it, let’s read the following passage on Ancient Rome and see what you can learn from the passage. If you need help with the passage, I will assist you.

What have you Learned?

etc.

After-reading activity: Now let’s return to our list and check which questions the passage has answered on Ancient Rome (3 to 5 minutes) and make a word web of our new knowledge about the Christians and the Romans.

Journal writing activity: Answer the following question using what you know about Christians and Romans. “Were the Ancient Romans’ negative reactions to the Christians logical given their beliefs?”

Fun Activity: Make a votive and pretend to offer it to your favorite god.

Guided Reading Approach to Cleopatra and the Roman Triumvirates

To explain the circumstances surrounding the fall of the First and Second Triumvirate and the beginning of the Roman Empire, I’ve chosen the junior book Cleopatra by Diane Stanley as my reference. This short book, appropriate for use in the fifth or sixth grade classroom, has a narrative style and fantastic illustrations on each page that facilitates the use of Guided Reading approach.

The guided reading approach allows students to predict the outcome of a story by looking at some but not all of the pictures in a book. Before reading the story, the students and I discuss the cover and title of the book to elicit their background knowledge of the main character, Cleopatra. Their responses to the question “Who was Cleopatra?” are used to create a character word web from the information that the students provide. A character word web is a graphic organizer that the students will use to remember details about the main character as they read the story. After reading a section of the book, more details will be added to the word web. A plot web could also be created as the story progresses.

At this point, the student would also take out their partially-completed map of the Roman Republic and locate, pronounce, and briefly discuss people and places that will be referred to in the story. A flat map of the Roman Empire at the beginning of the book serves as a reference to filling in those places on their maps that are addressed in the book, and a pronunciation guide at the end of the book allows the reader to learn easily the pronunciation of names and places such as Ptolemy that appear in the book and that may cause problems while reading.

Using the pronunciation guide at the back of the book, I’ll then provide some more background information on Cleopatra with very brief definitions of every character and place that is discussed in the book without giving away details about the plot or conclusion of the story. For example, I would mention that as the story begins, Julius Caesar was “a powerful general who had just defeated Pompey the Great and is pursuing him in Egypt when he meets Cleopatra. Mark Antony is his best friend, and he shares power with Octavian, Caesar’s adopted son, during the Second Triumvirate.” I would also reveal that Caesarion, Alexander Helios, Cleopatra Selene, and Ptolemy Philadelphus were Cleopatra’s children; however, I would avoid mentioning that both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony fall in love with Cleopatra, that Mark Antony’s loss at Actium ends the Roman Republic, and that Octavian makes a spectacle out of Cleopatra’s children in a Roman triumph parade after Mark Antony and she commit suicide. Of course, revealing these details would ruin the plot of story!

I would probably also mention that Octavian was “actually Julius Caesar’s grand-nephew; Caesar adopted him as his son and heir, because he, Caesar, didn’t have any “sons,” which you may remember was important in the Roman family. Later in the story, there would be some conflict over this decision. I probably wouldn’t mention that he didn’t have any sons of his own until Cleopatra bore him a son, Caesarion. Of course, Caesar didn’t have a chance to mention Cleopatra and Caesarion in his will, which created a problem to solved. If they didn’t know this fact, the students would have a more enjoyable reading experience because it would give them a chance to figure out the plot and give a reason/motivation to read. When kids are reading a good story, they are curious and they usually want to know what happens next.

After eliciting background information on Cleopatra like the previously-mentioned examples and using the pronunciation guide to learn names and places in the story, I would finally turn to the first page, ask them some questions about the pictures from the first five pages of the book before they actually read it, and then request that they silently read up to that point in the book. When they finish reading about four or five pages of the book, I would then check their understanding of the story with additional comprehension questions, see if their predictions from the pictures were correct, include additional information from the lectures as necessary, and continue the same process for each section of the book.

These answers to my questions, which are asked before and after reading each section of the book, not only are found in the text of the book but also require students to make inferences from the story and apply what they already know about Roman history to it. This reading strategy allows them to predict what is going to happen in the story; therefore, in addition to conjuring up prior knowledge of the topic, it also increases comprehension of the book when they actually start reading it.

When the students reach a certain point in the story (approximately 50 to 75% of it), they are instructed to read the remainder of the book silently and on their own. Afterwards, we discuss the outcome of the story, and I would again question the students’ understanding of it, finishing the character and track-the-plot graphic organizers. By looking at the map of Actium and focusing on a picture of Cleopatra’s war ships, I would discuss the causes for the defeat of Cleopatra and Mark Antony’s forces and the result of their defeat (the end of the Roman Republic). In addition, I mention that it was honorable for Roman generals, like Mark Antony, to commit suicide or to order decimation of their legions when they are defeated in battle to avoid being portrayed as cowards, especially by other Roman forces. I would also point out the instances of the strong Greek influence on the Romans (Cleopatra was actually Greek, a Ptolemy, and a descendant of Alexander the Great of Macedonia) as well as examine the differences between the way Romans and Egyptians viewed their gods and the way that these contrasting views contributed to the defeat and deaths of Cleopatra and her lovers. Then the students would compare and contrast the relationship between Caesar and Cleopatra and her relationship with Mark Antony later. They would have to think and search the book or make inferences to answer these questions.

After discussing the outcome of the story, I would then reinforce their newly-acquired knowledge of the First and Second Triumvirate with a journal writing activity; for example, I would ask the students to answer opinion questions based on their understanding of Cleopatra’s life, such as “Do you think it was worth it for Cleopatra, Caesar, and Mark Antony to risk world power for love? Do you think Cleopatra truly loved Caesar and Mark Antony? Could Caesar, Mark Antony, and Cleopatra have prevented their downfall?” Answers to these journal-writing questions should support their point of view with examples provided in the text, with background knowledge acquired from previous knowledge of the topic, through reading and through classroom discussions of the pictures in the book. In other words, strong reading skills and a clear understanding of Roman history is an interaction between many elements in the text and the individual reader.

Once they finish reading and writing, they could make a crown of laurel wreathes, which Julius Caesar wore to indicate his powerful military victories in Gaul (and to hide his baldness), a Roman brooch, or a snake arm bracelet that Cleopatra might have worn as jewelry. Directions for these activities are given on pages 14-15 of the book The Roman Empire: The Hands-On Approach to History. If time permits, I would also show them one of the films made of the story of Cleopatra, such as the 1930s Cecil B. DeMille production with Claudette Colbert in the title role, or the more famous version, from 1963, with Elizabeth Taylor as Queen Cleopatra, or the more recent, television version of the film, Cleopatra, which was released in 1999 with Timothy Dalton as Julius Caesar; otherwise, I would just make a reference to the film and tell them that could rent or order these classics at any video store.