November 3, 2026
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The Illinois Classical Conference is an organization that brings together teachers from K-12 through higher education, as well as students and lovers of the ancient Mediterranean from all walks of life. For many years, the U of I Classics Department has proudly sent contingents of graduate students and faculty to the annual meeting in order to present research and connect with other local educators in the state. In 2026, the annual meeting was held at the invitation of Collinsville High School and kindly hosted on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis on the weekend of October 10–11.
This year’s conference presentations ran the gamut from language pedagogy to experimental archaeology and practical advice for study abroad, with a special Saturday panel discussing Christopher Nolan’s summer blockbuster The Odyssey, its cultural footprint, and how it might be used in the classroom.The Classics department was, once again, well-represented at this year's meeting; with MAT students Linnea Mason and Rebekah Shively, Professor Ariana Trail, and Ancient Language Program Coordinator Joy Reeber all in attendance.
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Dr. Joy Reeber presents her paper entitled "Transcreation, Reception, and Adaptation in the Language Classroom"
The first two Saturday panels both dealt with pedagogy from different angles: the first discussed the experiences of several members running sections of Reacting to the Past (an award-winning pedagogy involving immersive role-playing of historical events), while the second focused more specifically on Latin language: first with Dr. Reeber’s experiences assigning translation assessments in language classes, then with a discussion of the use of tiered readers in Latin, and finally with Dr. Krishni Burns from the University of Illinois – Chicago presenting her experiences as a grader for the College Board AP Latin exam. Saturday’s events continued the aforementioned reception panel on Nolan’s Odyssey and finally a more disparate panel that contained research on citizenship grants using evidence from Pliny’s letters, a discussion of ancient apiculture (attempted reproductions of beekeeping), and a practical presentation on some of the benefits and pitfalls of leading study abroad trips to Rome for high schoolers.
Sunday’s events began with the traditional activity exchange between language teachers in the morning. The first panel involved literature, with a presentation discussing tendencies in recent YA Classics-related narratives followed by an introduction to a revised selected edition of Garrison’s Student’s Catullus by the co-author, Nava Cohen. The final panel of the conference proper was a workshop introducing a tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) conducted entirely in Latin, after which the official events concluded with the organization’s business meeting. One benefit of the conference’s meeting place in St. Louis was an after-conference excursion including a guided tour of the Cahokia Mounds, the largest pre-Columbian site north of Mexico, which at its height around 1100 CE held a population of almost 20,000 people.
Learn more about Illinois Classical Conference!