Eighth grade students and their parents gathered on Thursday, March 1 for an Evening with the Emperors.
At the beginning of the school year, students were assigned an emperor who would be the focus of a specific project each trimester.
During the first semester, students produced an ad campaign in an effort to convince the audience that their emperor was the best.
"Students started the yearlong project with researching this cast of characters: the good, the bad, and the ugly," explained Middle School Classics Chair, Steve Bosio. They also worked on a negative ad attacking an "enemy emperor." Research was limited to the book, Chronicle of the Roman Emperors. Students were encouraged to look at how emperors were represented in poetry, art, sculpture, coins, and monuments.
For the second trimester, students researched and constructed Roman coins and monuments to celebrate their emperor. During the evening, students presented their case to parents and teachers in an effort to convince them that their emperor deserved "a ticket out of the flames of the underworld."
"It was fun to be a sort of 'sales person' for our emperor," said Mia Cabral.
In memory of Director of Libraries, Linda Smith, Hon. and her late husband Warren, a prize in their name was awarded this year to the team with the Best Coin. The Linda and Warren Smith Prize for Best Coin was awarded to Team Nero which includes: Nick Cerone, Mia Cabral, Mark Dzwonczyk, Alexis Fuscaldo, and Shaam Gambhir.
An impressive collection of rare coins donated to EA by the Smith family was on display during the event. Middle School Classics teacher Melanie Sebacus shared her expertise on the collection.
The Brick to Marble Prize for Best Builders was awarded to Team Vespasian for their monument. The team includes: Ethan Harris, Alina Klaehn, Katie Locke, Berkeley Sando, and Will Vandiver.
"The Brick to Marble Prize is based on a quote from the Emperor Augustus who said that he found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble," explained Mr. Bosio. "We named the prize after this quote and awarded the prize to the 'best builders' of the group."
"I really enjoyed the monument aspect," said Ethan Harris. "It allowed us to dig deep and use both historical evidence and our imagination to construct something in honor of our emperor."
"What I liked most about the entire yearlong project is that we got to choose our groups and plan and execute building our coin and monument together," shared Alina Klaehn. "We really listened to each other's ideas and each did the part of our project that we could do best."
The winners were selected by faculty judges from the Middle School Classics, Art, and History departments.
Third trimester study is focusing on preparing a debate where students will be questioned about their emperor by a Classics Department moderator.
