Cicero’s Pro Archia: An Acceleration Reader with Pari Passu Translation: And Notes on the GRASP Method

Here, in a format designed to sharpen and accelerate comprehension abilities, is Cicero’s plea to affirm the citizenship-status (civitas) of his old humanities teacher Archias. This speech is an excellent choice for beginning a study of Ciceronian oratory, as the case is not complex, the technical legalities are minimal, and the particularities give rise to interesting, timely reflections on liberal studies and citizenship. The Pro Archia is also short enough to be covered in its entirety within a part of a term. The text is accompanied by a pari passu (“bit by bit”), mostly literal translation, original here, interleaved with Cicero’s Latin text in Acceleration Reader format, a style of presentation that helps students to divide, conquer, and progress towards a fluent understanding of the Latin. The basic assumption is that the process of attaining mastery requires learning how to process language in “chunks” or units of meaning sequentially, that is, as they arise. Typographically breaking down the longer, complex, syntactically foreign sentences allows for a better mental digestion of the contents, and ultimately for a smoother and quicker road to fluency in reading the language. Students can practice comprehension with less difficulty if they can focus on manageable and relatively undaunting smaller units. On many levels, this masterful composition can repay the effort that is made to appreciate it. It has a value that ought not to be limited to the time of its original audience. It was meant to have relevance, as Cicero intended, for all posterity. New in the 2024 (4th) edition is a substantial appendix on the GRASP Method, an approach that enables the “”deep processing”” of the Latin language. It is especially effective with students who find it espectially hard to “”break into”” the study of Latin. —- ISBN: 9798321611623