Analecta Technica (known as “Junior Skills Portfolio” )

The Analecta Technica is a portfolio that will normally be completed by the end of the junior year.  The purpose of requiring the portfolio is to ensure that students are prepared for the work they will be doing for their senior projects (seminar and symposium).

The overall goal of the Analecta Technica is to demonstrate that students are ready to analyze and interpret elements (e.g. texts, artifacts, institutions, etc.) of the ancient Greco-Roman world within their various contexts (e.g. political, social, linguistic, etc.) through the use of primary sources as evidence and secondary sources to situate their work in the context of the discipline.  To achieve this goal, students will need to be able to locate, utilize, and cite the sources indicated above.

Items in the portfolio must document the following skills:

1.     Using primary sources, properly cited, as evidence in an argument.

2.     Using secondary sources, properly cited, to situate your own or others’ work in the context of the discipline.

Items in the portfolio must document experience in all of the following tools in boldface as well as any three others:

Reference Tools

1)    Basic Reference Tools for the Languages:

a.    Lexicons

b.    Grammars

c.    Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG)

d.    Indices Verborum

2)    Basic Reference Tools for Texts:

a.    Commentaries

b.    TLG, TLL

3)    General Reference Tools:

a.    Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD)

b.    Perseus

c.    Pauly Wissowa, The New Pauly

d.    Literature Surveys

4)    Specific Reference Tools:

a.    History: Cambridge Ancient History, (also Perseus)

b.    Mythology: Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC)

c.    Art and Archaeology: Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, (also LIMC, Perseus)

d.    Geography: New Barrington Atlas

Search Tools

5)    General Library organization:

a. Bridge (exercises/library session provided by Heather Tompkins

b. Purposeful, physical browsing of shelves

c. Footnotes and bibliographies of published works

d. Citation indexes

6)    Search Tools specific to Classics:

a.    L’annee Philologique

b.    JSTOR

c.    Project Muse

d.    Nestor

e.    Published subject bibliographies

f.     Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Thus the portfolio should include:

a)    the check-off sheet showing courses taken that require use of specified tools;

b)    papers or other assignments documenting skills 1 and 2;

c)    a bibliography of at least 10 items (in the format specified on the Departmental Style Sheet) for next year’s Symposium Topic: this should include both books and articles, and ideally both primary and secondary sources.  You should flag items you’d like to recommend for a common reading.

d)   a brief reflective essay (1-2 pages) explaining how the items you have chosen to include demonstrate the required skills and tools, where in our departmental curriculum you had opportunities to practice them, and which ones you feel you may need more practice with.