Greek I: Syllabus

I. Content

Greek I covers the first 10 units of Hansen and Quinn’s introduction to the classical Greek language, at a rate of about three weeks per unit.

II. Course Aims and Objectives:

Aims:

At the end of Greek I, students should be able to read the Greek New Testament with little assistance beyond a standard lexicon. Students will be well prepared to complete Hansen and Quinn in Greek II.

Specific Learning Objectives:

 By the end of this course, students should be able to:

III. Format and Procedures:

Readings and homework assignments are to be completed BEFORE class time on the assigned date. Expect to spend approximately one hour on Greek outside of class each day. I am available by e-mail to address any questions that arise over homework. I will also take questions at every class meeting.

Readings: Read the assigned portions of Hansen and Quinn very carefully and think about whether you understand them. In class, I will assume that you have already studied the assigned readings, and I will focus on comprehension questions and application exercises. Bring your questions to class!

Homework: Homework assignments will usually consist of drills and translation exercises provided by the textbook. If it ever proves impossible to complete the entirety of a given homework assignment on time, I would rather see careful, incomplete work than rushed and careless completed work, but if this problem comes up you should let me know.

Quizzes: Quizzes will be drills of assigned memorization work, made available for self-study. The quizzes associated with each unit should be completed before beginning that unit’s translation exercises.

Final Exam: The final exam will be composed of past and new quizzes, administered under closed-book testing conditions, in addition to a brief open-book translation assignment.

IV. Grading and Evaluation:

Final grades will be calculated from translation assignments and class participation (20%), quiz completion (10%), and the final exam (70%).

Out-of-class translation tests will be used to evaluate each student’s developing ability to read, translate, and understand Greek sentences. Evaluations in this area are meant to encourage and reward progress through clear communication, not to penalize the learning process.

My evaluation of class participation will focus on the careful completion of regular homework assignments. I understand that Greek regularly involves a learning curve. Even if you suspect that your work includes mistakes, it is important to contribute in class, whether by volunteering, responding when called-upon, or by asking questions when you don’t understand an exercise or drill.

The online exam will be administered through the Moodle, and can be previewed and practiced prior to a proctored and “closed-book” final, official submission. The final exam will cover the paradigms and syntactic knowledge necessary to read Greek at the level reached in this class. The content and questions on the final exam will largely reproduce previous quizzes.

The deadline for the final exam will extend beyond the normal examination period to a date later in the summer. This extra studying time has helped past students commit to memory everything they learned in Greek I, and has prevented their Greek from getting as rusty as it might have become over a summer break entirely devoid of review.

V. Academic Integrity:

Homework: It will be assumed throughout the course that each student has personally worked through any assigned Greek exercise to produce the translation that they present as their own in class. All collaboration and consultation consistent with this assumption is welcomed and encouraged.
Translation Tests: All work submitted for a translation test must be the student’s own, produced without collaboration or consultation, and without reference to any resource besides the Hansen and Quinn textbook and our own class logs.

Quizzes: Quizzes are open book.

Final Exam: The translation portion of the final exam will be open book, but produced without collaboration or consultation, and without reference to any resource besides the Hansen and Quinn textbook and our own class logs. The final submission of each online portion of the final exam must be closed-book, completed from memory. Appropriate proctoring of the final exam must be confirmed by the student’s primary educator before final grade reporting can take place.