Portable
Adaptable
Library
Study Aids
Curriculum
Electronic Texts
Welcome to the Heritage Classical Curriculum, Ancient Rome edition.
If you have never used a Heritage History Compact Library before, this page will
introduce you to the educational resources that are part of the Curriculum,
and show you how they can be used for independent study.
A Portable Curriculum
The Heritage History Library that you are viewing appears to be a website, but it is not.
It uses the same
software that you are accustomed to using when you browse the internet but
instead of going over the network to access files it is reading them directly
from the Compact Disc on your computer. Each Heritage Library
contains a great deal of information and the browser software allows
us to organize it in a way that is familiar to most people.
All of the books,
maps, timelines, images and other resources that you link to in this environment
are available for you to view, print, or download to another device.
You don't need to pay any additional fees to copy these books to a Kindle or
iPad and you don't need to have access to the internet to view them on your own computer.
Best of all, you don't need to worry about
copyright violations
if you choose to print or copy anything from the Ancient Rome Library
for your personal use.
For those who prefer hardcopies, most of the information in the Heritage Curriculum
is available in printable form. The
Ancient Rome Study Guide contains
many of the Study Aids found on this Compact Library, and we encourage you to print
copies of any additional material that you may find helpful.
If someone were to print all of the books and study aids contained in the
Ancient Rome Library, hundreds of pages would be required, but fortunately the
books in this Compact Library can be read without printing them at all.
Each book is available in several formats so it can be read on any computer,
printed on any printer, or copied to any e-reader. For those users who
are not up-to-date regarding the most recent advances in e-book
technology, the Heritage Curriculum includes an
Electronic Texts User Guide which
provides instructions for downloading books from your Compact Library to
several popular e-readers. It also includes much information about
self-publishing, electronic readers, and copyright issues.
An Adaptable Curriculum
The Heritage Classical Curriculum was designed to be adaptable and to
appeal to students with a wide range of interests and abilities. The
Curriculum resources can be used by anyone undertaking an investigation of
Ancient Rome, either through independent study or as part of a structured
course or cooperative. The library includes books at a wide range
of reading levels so they can be used by students from grammar school
to high school. Heritage resources can be used with our own reading program, or
with a number of other curriculums.
The library itself contains more books than any student is likely to
read during a single term of history. This is because it was designed
for lifelong learning, rather than a quick survey. If the reading recommendations
for young readers are followed, students will certainly learn the fundamentals of
Roman history, but the curriculum provides for
continuing studies for older students as well.
For families who would like to keep things as uncomplicated as possible, using
the Heritage curriculum can be as simple as making selections from our
Recommendations list and reading books from
our collection.
For those who want to jump right into a reading-based program, a step-by-step
guide to using the Heritage Curriculum as a independent study program
is provided on our
Getting Started page.
For those that want to spend some time exploring the wide range of materials
available in the Heritage Classical Curriculum, a brief description of the
information found on the Ancient Rome Curriculum CD follows.
The Library
The centerpiece of the Ancient Rome Classical Curriculum is its
collection of over fifty traditional history books written specifically
for young people. The library includes books at a variety of
reading levels, and each
is presented in three different file types so students can read them
on their home computer, make printed copies, or download
them to their e-reader device.
About a quarter of the books in the Ancient Rome library
could be considered "comprehensive histories", meaning they cover the
whole span of Roman history from the founding of Rome to the fall
of the Western Empire. Every student should read at least a
few of these selections. The rest of the collection is
composed of a variety of
genres including biographies,
adapted literature, military history, and historical fiction.
In addition to providing book lists organized by genre and reading level, the
Ancient Rome Library contains two additional reference pages intended to help
students and instructors identify books of particular interest. The
Book Summaries page includes a short
description of each book in the library. The
Series Descriptions page, which features descriptions of
overall series rather than individual books, may be helpful to those
readers who enjoy a particular book and would like to locate similar volumes.
The Library reference pages mentioned above are intended to help students
and instructors decide which books are of most interest, but they make
no specific recommendations. A specific program of study, however, is provided on the
Recommendations page. On this page books that the editors
of the Heritage Curriculum recommend as core reading for various reading levels are
described in detail, and supplemental suggestions are also listed.
Study Aids
The Heritage Classical Curriculum includes
a number of learning resources that are of particular use to students undertaking a
comprehensive study of Roman history. These study aids include
timelines,
character lists,
maps,
illustrations,
battle dictionaries, and
historical summaries.
Most of these study aids are organized by historical
era, so that timelines, characters, and important incidents can be
studied at one time, and tests or reviews can be devised to cover
specific eras in Roman history.
Many of the study resources available on the Study Aids section of the
Heritage Classical Curriculum have been collected into a printable
Ancient Rome Study Guide
so that they can be reproduced and put in a notebook for easy reference.
We have found that many
students benefit from having printed versions of maps, timelines, and other
learning aids organized in a handy notebook even if most of their reading is
done using electronic formats.
The manner in which these resources are used varies according
to age, learning style and instructor preference. They can be
used either informally by individuals or integrated into a
structured curriculum by an energetic history teacher.
These options are discussed in more detail in the introduction
to the Study Guide.
The Curriculum Guide
The Heritage Classical Curriculum differs from many other
programs not only in the selection of books it uses, but also in
its methods. These differences are set forth in the Introduction
of the
Curriculum User Guide, along with
a discussion of the "living books" approach to history,
and other aspects of the Heritage History learning philosophy.
Most of the rest of the User Guide
covers practical rather than philosophical issues. It provides
advice for keeping students on track learning the essentials while maintaining
enough flexibility to allow them to pursue their own interests.
Other topics include a description of available Heritage Curriculums
and Libraries, a discussion
of our recommended sequence of instruction, guidelines
for scheduling reading assignments, and suggestions for oral and written
review.
A printable copy of the Heritage
Curriculum User Guide is available, and we
recommend that anyone who has not used the Heritage Classical Curriculum
read the entire guide before beginning the program. If you still have
questions after reading the Curriculum User Guide, refer to the Curriculum
Frequently Asked Questions.
Electronic Texts
In order to make our entire library of traditional history books available at an
affordable price, Heritage History provides low-cost, electronic versions of
each book in both e-reader and printable formats.
Unfortunately, not all Heritage Curriculum users are up-to-date regarding
the most recent advances in electronic books technology. In order to
help our users make informed decisions about usage and purchases of
electronic readers and desktop publishing tools, we have provided an
Electronic Text User Guide. It is
divided into three main sections that deal with issues related to
electronic readers, self-publishing, and copyright restrictions.
The Heritage guide to
Electronic Readers discusses the differences
between various e-reader technologies and gives detailed
instructions for downloading Heritage e-books from a Compact Library
to an e-reader device such as Kindle or Apple iPad.
For those who prefer reading hard-copies rather than e-books, the Heritage guide to
Self-publishing provides tips for printing
and binding the books from the Heritage library at home in an efficient and cost-effective
manner. Finally, the terms and conditions of using the electronic texts are
discussed in the
Copyright Terms section.
A printable copy of the Heritage
Electronic Texts User Guide is available, and we strongly
recommend that anyone who is not already familiar with e-reader technology,
laser printers, and binding equipment read the guide before deciding
how to use the Heritage e-book library. Even technologically
advanced readers should probably familiarize themselves with the copyright
status of the Heritage books before beginning the program.
If you still have
questions after reading the Electronic Text User Guide, refer to the Electronic Texts
Frequently Asked Questions.