Rome

Rome: The Past is Present

Introduction
We live in a "global" world, where people of different cultures, languages, and regions are connected to and influenced by each other. People travel more or less freely from country to country as immigrants, business people or tourists. We communicate across national boundaries and have windows into each others'lives through entertainment and the news. Ideas and culture travel too: there are McDonald's in Moscow and Japanese sushi can be found in most American cities and towns. All of this is new--or is it? How much were the ancient Romans like us? How much did they have to do with who we are? The statue to the right is of the first Roman emperor, Augustus. The statue below is of our first president, George Washington. The patriots who carried out the American Revolution knew a great deal about the ancient Romans, and drew inspiration from their history. This is part of our past as a nation. Your task will be to make some comparisons between ourselves and ancient Rome, discover what we've admired and imitated, and find evidence that Rome is still in some ways, alive in the world around us. As you move through your research, keep in mind these:
 * as a force that shaped the world we live in
 * as an mirror of some of our own strengths and weaknesses

Questions for Reflection.
You should begin by getting a clear understanding of the tasks you'll be doing and and process you'll be following in your investigation. Use suggested resources and other reliable information sources you discover in the course of your research. You will provide the results of your investigation in both a final group presentation and invidividual written pieces.
 * What makes a civilization strong?
 * What makes a civilization great?
 * Why do civilizations "fall?"
 * Why does one culture imitate another?
 * What are the qualities of a great leader?
 * How can a culture deal successfully with other cultures?
 * How can/should a culture deal with ethnic, racial and religious diversity?

Investigation: Your Process

 * You will work in a group, deciding on a topic focus as you explore the resources. Your research goal is to gather information that will allow you to
 * compare Roman civilization to our own (United States) civilization.
 * explore the influence Roman civilization has had on us.
 * Though you will work with your group to choose a topic and do your presentation,
 * you will take on a specific individual research task/subject related to your group's topic.
 * you are individually responsible for identifying, gathering information and reporting back to the group about something still to be found in the modern world that shows the influence of Rome or a strong similarity to ancient Rome that you can validate through your research. Your individual research and results will be posted to your individual wiki page.

Steps in the Research process
While there is a basic sequence for research, you will find you sometimes need to go back to a previous step to get a clearer focus, make corrections or changes, or fill in gaps. For example, as you find information in your resources, you might find you need to revise and develop new questions or subtopics for investigation. Don't get discouraged or stalled if this happens! It's a natural part of the process. Remember to save **all** of your work, including bibliography forms, in your social studies folder. >> (including sports and recreation) Bread and Circus is not just the name of a grocery store--it refers to Roman history. Some Romans felt that the people would be happy and not cause trouble to their leaders if they were given food (bread) and entertainment (circuses). If true, how does this compare with sports and entertainment today? How important are they to us? >> The Romans borrowed from other cultures, particularly the Greeks, when it came to the arts. But they developed the forms and interpreted them in ways that expressed Roman values and talents. Explore this area, comparing our own arts with theirs. Think about the types of buildings and statues you see that remind you of Roman buildings and statues. Why might the builders/sculptors have imitated the Romans in designing these? Take another look at the George Washington statue and the building in front of which it stands. (Some sculptors actually put our first president in classical --Greek/Roman--dress, as one of the items in the [|Arizona State University Museum] illustrates.) >> Romans had definite ideas about what made someone a good leader. You might want to think about our own values--what do **we** admire in a leader, as represented in--for example--Airforce One? >> Some historians have made comparisons between the "American Empire"--starting from the original thirteen colonies and moving westward--and the Roman Empire. Others note that while the United States does not have an empire, it has an interest in what happens in other countries and in preserving stability and peace beyond our borders. This makes us take on a role similar to that of the Romans in the ancient world. What was their role? What issues did they have to deal with in establishing, managing and maintaining their empire?
 * 1) Survey the resources to get a general understanding of the Roman world and a come up with a list of terms for keyword and subject searching in your information sources. As you survey, be on the alert for similarities and differences between our culture and Roman culture.
 * 2) Choose a topic area. Here are some suggestions (but your group can come up with another topic area; make sure you get it approved by your teachers, who will know whether it will work in terms of project goals and resources):
 * **Entertainment**
 * **Architecture/Sculpture/Art**
 * **Leaders**
 * **Growth and protection of the empire**
 * 1) Develop questions to use in gathering information
 * 2) Identify relevant resources that are likely to contain good information relevant to your questions. Start with your text book and electronic sources.
 * 3) Take notes that reflect **your** accurate understanding of the information you've gathered through reading, listening, or viewing. Remember to check your work for accuracy and details such as spelling. If your notes are based on observation--of a museum artifact or a building you see downtown, for example--include information about the object from a caption, sign, or knowledgeable adult.
 * 4) Record your sources. Make sure you've been complete and accurate (including spelling everything correctly). This goes for Internet resources too!
 * 5) [|__http://www.bibme.org/__] - Online bibliography entry formatter.
 * 6) []
 * 7) Share the information you gathered as a group; make a Venn diagram for your topic comparing and contrasting ancient Rome and the modern United States.
 * 8) Decide on a way to present your information. Some suggestions are given on the Presenting the Results page.

Local Information Resources
For your survey and research, use both print and electronic resources. To do your individual investigation of something in the modern world that you can relate to Rome, use museums, local libraries, librarians, and community college, historical societies, a walk through downtown, newspapers, magazines and other local current resources.

Books and Periodicals
There are numerous books available about ancient Rome. In libraries that use the Dewey Decimal system, you will find the majority of books in the 937's. Use the catalog of your library to make sure you've found them--some libraries use an older number for ancient history. And not every book about Rome is found in the Roman History section; David Macaulay's City is usually placed in the Architecture section, for example. Some of the more recent books are well-illustrated and provide a brief survey of different topic areas. Two older general titles that provide a great deal of specific information about many topics are Mary Johnston's Roman Life and F.R. Cowell's Everyday Life in Ancient Rome. Use the keywords and subject headings you develop in your survey to search library catalogs for more sources. To find magazine articles (in addition to the two by T.R. Reid in the July and August (1997) issues of National Geographic), use an electronic periodical index such as Middle Search. There are also general and specialized periodical indexes. **Remember to use the appropriate forms to record** all **the necessary bibliographic information for** all **your sources, including electronic ones!**

Web Information Resources
In addition to resources on the Web, there are several excellent CD databases, such as Microsoft Ancient Lands, that should be useful in your research. Many of the Web sites listed below include helpful bibliographies as well as links to other sites. Remember to carefully evaluate sites that you discover on your own--who is the author, and how reliable is the information? How does it compare with what you've found in trustworthy print sources? > Shows the influence of Roman architecture in this ancient Middle Eastern kingdom. > Some virtual reality slides that show areas of Rome as they might have looked. Also a virtual reality walkthrough (if it will run on your computer) of an area of the city. Use this to get a sense of the probable setting, not as a solid information source.(Wait till you're done with your research to play the VR game, SPQR, available at this site.) > A French city site (with English translation available--look for the British flag) that has great pictures of Roman buildings still in use today. > Click on the English language version (British flag--unless you're fluent in French) to get the text that accompanies wonderful images of the city of Rome in imperial times. Terrific slide show shows details of a reconstructed Colosseum. > Good visuals on several Roman topics, and a virtual reality walkthrough. Some good links to other sites. > Some excellent pictures, with text, of ancient Roman artifacts. > The color coding doesn't always work, and the navigation is a little awkward, but this provides an interesting timeline/chart of events and developments in world history. Interesting visual representation of the rise and fall of cultures and civilizations. Click on the time periods relevant to ancient Rome; also check out the "Maps" option to see the world map with locations and relationships of some civilizations (including Rome and China) and cultures in the second century AD. > Photographs of Rome's temporary northernmost frontier, together with video clips of military re-enactments--see how the Roman army charged in battle! > Shows some of the objects and building remains to be found in present-day Turkey and other areas of the Mediterranean > Clear photographs of many of the emperors' statues, together with coins on which they were represented and links to articles (by knowledgeable authors) at other sites. > Has feature articles and archives as well as other resources. The article on Rome in the August 1997 issue of the magazine promises that a related feature will appear online--watch for it and compare it to the print articles on Rome (July and August 1997) > Some wonderful photographs (click for full screen version) of buildings and objects from Roman Pompeii, with brief captions > Many maps that link to photographs of areas of Pompeii. There's lots of information at this site, > Great source of information on these topics, with many images. > Well organized, attractive and informative site about all types of Roman ball sports. > Describes the many games Romans played, complete with rules. > Other sources will point out the similarities between the Roman Calendar and ours. This site emphasizes the differences. > An encyclopedia of Roman emperors which is still being developed. Informative articles on some emperors, organized alphabetically and chronologically. > A view of the Emperor Diocletian's palace in Split. It is supposed to provide visuals by clicking on specific areas. This is a feature that may not be available, but take a look at the palace and read the caption anyway if you want to get a sense of an emperor's lifestyle. > Photographs of some parts of Hadrian's Wall, the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire for centuries. > This site offers a great clickable map of the Roman empire that provides links to Web information sources on that region. ROMARCH has links to **many** sites, some of them rated for their quality. It also gives access to the Argos search engine, described below under "Search Argos." > Great pictures of Roman buildings and artifacts (click for a full-screen image, with brief captions. > This page provides access to a map of the Roman Empire and its provinces. Click on an area to find Web resources (if any are available) about that part of the empire. > A wonderful search engine for ancient history Websites. Use it when you have a specific topic that you can define in keywords.
 * [|Ancient Petra]
 * [|Ancient Sites - Rome]
 * [|Bienvenue a Nimes-Welcome to Nimes]
 * [|Caen Model of Rome]
 * [|Dead Romans]
 * [|DIA Galleries: Ancient Art of the Romans]
 * [|Hyperhistory Online Project]
 * [|The Hunterian Museum - Romans in Scotland]
 * [|Images of Architecture and Architectural Sculpture in the Mediterranean]
 * [|Justin Paola's Collection of Roman Emperors]
 * [|National Geographic Online]
 * [|Pompeii (Hugh Lester of Tulane University)]
 * [|Pompeii Forum Project]
 * [|Roman Art and Architecture]
 * [|Roman Ball Games]
 * [|Roman Board Games]
 * [|Roman Calendar]
 * [|Roman Emperors]
 * [|A Roman Palace in ex-Yugoslavia]
 * [|Rome in Northern England]
 * [|ROMARCH]
 * [|Rome (Hugh Lester of Tulane University)]
 * [|Rome - Map Resources]
 * [|Search Argos]

Presenting the Results of Your Investigation
In developing both your group and individual presentations, keep in mind the "Questions for Reflection" posed in the WebQuest introduction. Address at least one of them in some way in your final products.

Group Presentation
Depending on your research topic, any of the following ways of sharing your findings could work. Each should have an appropriate oral introduction or presentation that includes some comparison of Roman and our own culture relevant to your topic area.
 * A video, play, or debate about your topic in which you identify things in our world that are like or imitate ancient Rome. It will need narration or an accompanying written description to make clear what the images mean.
 * [] - Create an animated video with the Zimmer Twins.
 * [|__http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/__] - Screencast - Screencast-O-Matic is the original free and easy way to make a screen capture video recording with audio (aka screencast) and upload it for free hosting all from your browser with no install!
 * []
 * [|www.memoov.com]
 * A book
 * [] - Mixbook - creates digital scrapbooks.
 * [] - create on-line story books
 * A timeline that has a written explanation of some of the events in Roman history and allows for comparison with events in U.S. history
 * [] - TIMEGLIDER - An online timeline application that easily creates a great-looking timeline. The no-cost version can import links, RSS, images, and much more. No collaborative sharing of timelines at this point.
 * [] - TIMEGLIDER - An online timeline application that easily creates a great-looking timeline. The no-cost version can import links, RSS, images, and much more. No collaborative sharing of timelines at this point.
 * h [|__ttp://www.dipity.com__] - timeline tool - students must set up an account
 * [|__http://www.learningtools.arts.ubc.ca/timeline.htm__] - timeline tool 2.0 - students do not need an account
 * [|__http://www.capzles.com__] - timeline tool - students must set up an account
 * [|www.animoto.com]
 * [|www.voicethread.com]
 * [|www.prezi.com]
 * A map or maps, appropriately captioned, that represents some aspect of Roman history or culture and allows for comparison with events or features of U.S. history or culture

Individual Written Reflection
In addition, each of you must do--on your own--a written piece that addresses at least one of the reflection questions. Your piece can be in any of the following forms:
 * an editorial in a newspaper
 * letters to the editor of a newspaper
 * journal entries
 * a recommendation to a friend about to embark on time travel

Finally, do a written evaluation of your best, most helpful information resource. What, in particular (give specific examples), made it helpful? What qualifies it as the "best" resource? All written work should be labeled and saved to your wiki page in a neat and well-organized manner. 