Event flyer with event text and a line drawing of stylized tree, half of which looks like circuits or a circuit board

Expanding the Ancient World Workshop:

Teaching Latin with AI

David Ratzan and Patrick Burns (ISAW)

This workshop will take place in person at ISAW.

Registration is required.

Expanding the Ancient World is a series of professional development workshops and online resources for teachers. Keyed to the NYC Department of Education Social Studies Scope and Sequence, this program is designed to offer K-12 educators opportunities to develop their knowledge of the ancient world and to provide classroom-ready strategies for teaching the past with reliable sources. Featuring inquiry-based workshops, flexible lesson plans, and up-to-date research, Expanding the Ancient World aims to equip teachers with information and skills that they can share with their students. CTLE credits will be offered to New York State teachers.

This workshop is organized by the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World Library and the New York Classical Club and aims to explore techniques for integrating AI chatbots into the Latin language classroom. Chatbots (ChatGPT, but also Gemini, Claude, Copilot, and others) are having an obvious impact on classrooms around the world. The discussion in the humanities has so far focused largely on the potential for AI to interfere with learning and assessment. The point of departure for this workshop is different: to leverage the real opportunities this technology represents for Latin pedagogy.

Participants will engage in exercises that model some or all of the following language-learning activities:

  • circling and real-time call-response drills in Latin to improve active comprehension
  • creating new, graded, and personalized texts on accessible themes in Latin for beginning and intermediate readers
  • simplifying and adapting ancient texts for beginning and intermediate readers
  • generating prompts and reading comprehension questions
  • generating examples and practice sentences using prescribed vocabulary (e.g. from a chapter or two of a textbook)
  • generating images that correspond to text and vice versa

No prior experience with AI or chatbots is required. This workshop is open to anyone who teaches Latin at any level, from elementary school to college. Participants must bring a computer and will use a free AI chat interface during the workshop. Participants are encouraged to bring texts that they are currently teaching as well as supporting materials that they wish to adapt further using AI.

The workshop facilitators are Dr. Patrick J Burns & Dr. David M. Ratzan.

Participants will receive 1.5 CTLE hours.

Expanding the Ancient World is made possible by generous support from ISAW and an NYU Teaching Advancement Grant.

If you have any questions regarding the Expanding the Ancient World program please email .

Please check isaw.nyu.edu for event updates.

ISAW is committed to providing a positive and educational experience for all guests and participants who attend our public programming. We ask that all attendees follow the guidelines listed in our community standards policy.