Build Rome in a Day

Large and small monuments

 

Students may work on their own or in groups of two or three.  Students working individually should be assigned small monuments, or possibly medium ones.  Students working in pairs or groups should be given medium or large constructions.

 

You do not have to assign all of the monuments.  If you do not have enough students to build all of them, you might just assign the structures in the Roman Forum.  If you need to drop just a few, I recommend eliminating the baths and Tiber Island, which are large and complicated.

 

Multiple class sections

 

If you have multiple class sections, you can assign different monuments to students in different classes, and then put them all together to make a complete city.  I have found that about 65-70 students, working as singles or in groups of two or three, end up constructing most of the 44 monuments in the city.  If you run out of medium/large buildings you can give two small monuments to a pair of students to do together.

 

One method of monument selection

 

Here is one suggested technique for assigning monuments to the students, but teachers should use their preferred methods.  First, have the students decide if they would like to work alone or in pairs or groups.  It is a good idea to remind them that if they have busy schedules, it is often easier to work on their own.  Then have the students come up and choose a "Small Blueprint and Information Card" out of the “Small,” “Medium,” or “Large” envelope, based on whether they are working alone or with partners.  They should choose without looking in the envelope and they are not allowed to trade (although sometimes after you have given out monuments to all of the students, you might allow them to trade for ones that are still left in the envelopes, especially if any of the more important monuments have not yet been chosen). 

 

If students lose their copies of the "Small Blueprint and Information Cards," they can download new ones from the "Monuments" page of the project website.

 

Keeping track of monument assignments

 

As you assign the monuments to your students, it is important to keep track of which monuments were assigned to which students.  You can record the names of the students assigned to each monument on the "Monuments Assignment Chart" in this Teacher's Guide.  It is helpful to assign one student to be the class scribe, and then after each student or group of students receives their monument assignment, have them go to the scribe to have their names recorded on the chart.  Then after you have finished with the building assignments, read through the chart aloud to the class, just to make sure all of the names were recorded.