Nomen: ______________________________________________
Dies: _________
Latin 1 December Dinner Party Skit Project
Background
With Christmas fast approaching, we are going to honor one of the inspirations for this holiday: the
Roman festival of Saturnalia. This festival, designed to honor the god Saturn (father of Jupiter), took place
on December 17th and later was expanded to last until December 23rd. This date was specifically chosen,
as it coincides with the winter solstice—the shortest and darkest day of the year. Therefore, Saturnalia is
a festival of light, as every day after this would become longer and longer as the light of the Sun came
back to the Earth.
The day started with a public sacrifice, followed by public celebrations and finally private celebrations.
On this day, no Roman citizens would not work, courts would be shut down, schools were closed, no
public business was conducted and the army could make no declaration of war. Also, social norms would
be flipped, as gambling and excessive drinking were permissible. The entire population shut down to
celebrate this festival of light.
In modern times, Saturnalia became one of the influences for the Christian holiday of Christmas, which
was specifically chosen on December 25th to incorporate the imagery of light emerging from darkness. At
the end of Saturnalia there was a custom of gift-giving, which also worked its way into Christmas. Some
reports even indicate that human-shaped desserts were eaten—possibly the ancestor of the gingerbread
man. These Roman origins led to the Puritans in New England banning Christmas in 17th century
America, due to its pagan origins.
Directions
In honors of this holiday, we will be celebrating our own Saturnalia festival by having a Roman-style
feast. As part of the celebrations, you and your gens will create Latin skits to entertain Magister Caccavale
and his gens optima. Your skit should be entertaining and accurate. You will use the first 5 chapters of
Ecce Romani as a guide.
Responsibilities of the Gens Optima
 Automatic 40/50 (80%)
 Organization of the feast (5 points)
o Figure out what each individual is bringing. This might include:
 Food, Drinks, Cups, Silverware (plastic), plates, napkins, etc
 Welcome/Goodbye Oration in English (5 points)
o Together, the Gens Optima will write a brief welcome/goodbye speech to the other gentes
congratulating them on a good competition throughout the year
Responsibilities of All Other Gentes
 Congratulatory speec to the Gens Optima in English
o Entire gens will participate in congratulating the Gens Optima and their superiority
 Latin Skit (50 points)
Your skit will meet the following requirements:
1) Each member of the gens must have an equal part and amount of dialogue (minimum 5 sentences)
a. You must turn in a master script that clearly marks which group member translated
which section! You will be graded individually on this…
2) A copy of the Latin script, as well as an English translation
3) It must include…
a. 10 Intransitive Verbs (do not repeat verbs!)
b. 10 Direct Objects & Transitive Verbs (do not repeat verbs!)
c.
d.
e.
f.
5 Linking Verbs and Complements (do not repeat verbs!)
5 Complementary Infinitives (do not repeat verbs!)
5 Uses of “Necesse est” with an Infinitive (do not repeat verbs!)
10 feminine adjectives, 10 masculine adjectives (do not repeat!)
Topic
You will pick one of the chapter stories from our textbook (Chapters 1-7) and expand where the story left
off. For example, in Ch. 5 the story ends with Sextus still up in a tree—what happened next? Feel free to
pick whatever topic you want, just keep the story appropriate!
Online Translators
Nota Bene (Note Well)! Any use of an online translating tool (ex. Google Translate) is against the
Academic Policies of Needham High School’s World Language Department. Any use of a translator by
anyone in your group will result in the entire group earning a grade of “0” and being written up for
Academic Dishonesty.
Rubric
50 points
total
Grammatical
Accuracy (x5)
5
2
1/0
 5 Intransitive
verbs used
 5 direct objects &
Transitive verbs
used
 3 linking verbs
and complements
used
 5 Complementary
Infinitives used
 3 Uses of “Necesse
Est” w/ Infinitive
 5 Masculine and 5
Feminine
Adjectives used
 2 IV’s used
 2 direct
objects/TV’s
used
 0 linking verbs
and
complements
used
 2 Comp.
Infinitives used
 2 Masculine
and 2 Feminine
Adjectives used
 Does meet
grammatical
requirements
Length

Participation
(x3)

 Skit less than a
 Skit less than
minute long
a minute long
 One or more
 One or more
group members
group
have very
members do
limited work
not
speak/work
 Students’
 Students’
speech is not
speech is not
clear and has
clear
many stops and  Very low
stutters
energy/
 Students have
enthusiasm
low energy/
 Very low level
enthusiasm
of creativity
 Skit shows little
creativity
Performance/ 
Creativity/
Energy


4
3
 4 IV’s used
 3 IV’s used
 4 direct
 3 direct
objects/TV’s
objects/TV’s
used
used
 2 linking verbs
 1 linking verbs
and
and
complements
complements
used
used
 4 Comp.
 3 Comp.
Infinitives used
Infinitives used
 2 Uses of
 1 Use of
“Necesse Est”
“Necesse Est”
w/ Infinitive
w/ Infinitive
 4 Masculine and  3 Masculine and
4 Feminine
3 Feminine
Adjectives used
Adjectives used
Skit 3-5 minutes in  Skit 2-3 minutes  Skit 1-2 minutes
length
long
long
Each member has  Certain members  Certain members
an equal amount of
have slightly
have
work
more work than
significantly
their peers
more work than
their peers
Students speak in a  Students speak
 Students’ speech
clear voice without
in a clear voice
is clear, but with
stopping or
with a few stops
many stops and
stuttering
or stutters
stutters
Students are very  Students are
 Students are
highly energetic
highly energetic
somewhat
and excited for skit
and excited for
energetic/
skit
excited for skit
Skit shows very
high creativity
 Skit shows high
 Skit shows some
creativity
creativity