Every year, schools from all over the state gather together for the Illinois Junior Classical League (IJCL)’s annual Latin Convention. For two days, these schools gather together to celebrate their interest in a common language. Each day is full of fun activities that foster friendship and competition between students.
The Convention begins with all of the schools gathering together and participating in spirit competitions. Each school dresses up in accordance with a theme and chants various cheers in order to show their school spirit. Students then take tests in various subjects including Latin vocabulary, grammar, and many aspects of Ancient Roman culture. Students were then ranked based on their performance on these tests, and many Benet students won ribbons. These students included Connor O’Keefe (‘19) and Catherine Bosch (‘19) who, along with other students, tied for first place on the Latin derivative test.
When not participating in spirit competitions or the testing session, Latin students were given many opportunities to make new friends. A very wide variety of activities were held throughout each day, including coloring contests, Certamen, Kahoot competitions, board game competitions, and lessons about various Roman subjects with fun activities to go along with them.
The IJCL, along with encouraging students’ love of Latin, is also a service organization. Because of this, throughout the Convention there were multiple ongoing service projects. Each school, prior to attending the convention, had a T-shirt drive and a hygiene product drive. The T-shirts were made into dog toys by students at the Convention and were sent to dogs at animal shelters. The hygiene products collected were sent to a woman’s center in Chicago.
The highlight of Latin Convention was the toga dinner and dance. On the last day using bed sheets, all the participants dressed up in homemade togas and had dinner together just as the Romans might have. Dinner was followed by a dance, which was another wonderful opportunity to get to know other Latin students and to make new friendships.
Between the fun activities, friendly competition, and new friendships, this year’s Latin Convention was a wonderful experience for all the students who attended and is sure to be one of their best memories of Latin.