Abstract
The Department for Education (DfE) GCSE Subject Content for Ancient Languages embeds the study of literature as a significant requirement in the specifications of any Latin GCSE (DfE, 2018). Specifications are instructed to ‘require students to read a range of ancient literature, including at least one selection of prose and/or verse texts in the original language, adapted and abridged, as appropriate’ (DfE, 2018, p5). Furthermore, students are to be expected to respond to the literary style; show an understanding of the cultural and historical context; and compare and contrast ‘values and social practices from the ancient and modern worlds’ (DfE, 2018, p5). The two exam boards offering GCSE Latin, Oxford Cambridge and RSA (OCR) and Eduqas, take slightly different approaches to fulfilling these requirements. Both have a range of module options to choose from; however, OCR offers fewer choices of author in the original language (OCR, 2015), whereas Eduqas requires either six or ten different authors in its compulsory literature module (Eduqas, 2015).
Highlights
The Department for Education (DfE) GCSE Subject Content for Ancient Languages embeds the study of literature as a significant requirement in the specifications of any Latin GCSE (DfE, 2018)
In ancient languages such as Latin and Classical Greek, the literature requirement does not occur until they have started their GCSE and it will often be introduced late in that course due to the need to have completed the majority of learning for the language components
I designed the unit of work (UoW) to take this into account and provide background knowledge, and as much as a disadvantage I see this as a positive effect of using authentic texts, which supports the aim of the ancient languages GCSE subject content to enable students to ‘develop their knowledge and understanding of ancient literature, values and society’ through the study of literature (DfE, 2018, p.3)
Summary
The UoW would incorporate authentic texts into their language study alongside the reading course they were following This would be used to fulfil the language objectives set out in the scheme of work while introducing the pupils to something of the nature of authentic Latin so that it would not seem so unfamiliar when they encountered it in their literature module. I designed the UoW to take this into account and provide background knowledge, and as much as a disadvantage I see this as a positive effect of using authentic texts, which supports the aim of the ancient languages GCSE subject content to enable students to ‘develop their knowledge and understanding of ancient literature, values and society’ (my emphasis) through the study of literature (DfE, 2018, p.3). This makes it a careful balancing act to find texts that are appropriate both linguistically and in terms of content, as in the UoW I intended to make thematic connections to the existing scheme of work
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