We argue that students can understand an historical period by building on the foundations of their existing knowledge. Specifically, popular media can be used to develop students’ historical literacies – that is their ability to engage with past societies vastly different from their own. Our methodology takes inspiration from the ancient Romans’ own partial literacies and utilises pedagogy drawn from Classical Reception Studies, which examines how the ancient world has been subsequently reinvented in everything from poetry to cinema. While traditional methods of teaching Classics potentially alienate learners and entrench the discipline’s elitism, we advocate learning about the past from a point of familiarity. Harnessing familiar texts and platforms to teach history can engage non-traditional learners and develop their historical literacies by leveraging pre-existing digital literacies. Furthermore, digital pedagogy fosters in students a sense that they can valuably contribute to disciplinary knowledge by recontextualising ancient sources.

我们认为学生可以通过建立在他们现有知识的基础上来理解一个历史时期。具体而言，大众媒体可用于培养学生的历史素养——即他们融入与过去截然不同的社会的能力。我们的方法论从古罗马人自己的部分文学中汲取灵感，并利用从古典接受研究中汲取的教学法，该研究考察了古代世界随后如何在从诗歌到电影的各个方面进行改造。虽然传统的经典教学方法可能会疏远学习者并巩固学科的精英主义，但我们提倡从熟悉的角度学习过去。利用熟悉的文本和平台来教授历史可以吸引非传统学习者并通过利用现有的数字素养来发展他们的历史素养。此外，数字教学法培养学生的一种感觉，即他们可以通过重新背景化古代资源来为学科知识做出宝贵贡献。