Geography was one of the many themes we explored in our journey through ancient Rome. As a summative assessment, students created annotated maps that explored how various geographical features contributed to the success of the Roman Empire.

After geography, we looked into the three major forms of government that ruled during ancient Roman times (monarchy, republic, and empire). Students explored the differences and similarities between each form of government, the associated benefits and drawbacks, and the parallels between ancient and modern systems of governance. To enhance learning, students were asked to act out various parts of the government system in a brief role play.

As a summative assessment, students created comic strips that visually depicted the major features of each form of government. Part of the criteria was to include speech bubbles that enhanced the viewers understanding of what life would be like under that particular form of rule. Students also included brief summaries of each form of government on the back of their comic strips.

Another summative assessment in this unit was an independent research project. Students were asked to research a topic or theme they were interested in by asking 2-3 inquiry questions to guide their research. Students then published their research on their Weebly websites. All students were asked to demonstrate how their topic of choice contributed to the advancement of the Roman Empire. Here are some examples of the webpages my students created.