RUBRIC
FOR LATIN AND GREEK UNDERGRADUATE TRANSLATIONS
AT THE 3000 LEVEL
An A translation is extraordinary work that more than fulfills the requirements of the assignment. The translation demonstrates at least 90% of the time the student's mastery of vocabulary, morphology, and syntax. In addition to capturing the nuances of the semantics, the student recognizes and construes idioms, particles, and subordinate phrases accurately at least 90% of the time. The translation also reflects the student's understanding of the place of the text in the larger political, social-historical, and/or literary context of the ancient Mediterranean world.
A B translation is clearly above-average and more than meets the requirements
of the assignment. The translation demonstrates at least 80% of the time
the student's mastery of vocabulary, morphology, and syntax. In addition
to recognizing the possible varieties of semantics, the student also
recognizes idioms, particles, and subordinate phrases and translates
them correctly at least 80% of the time. The student must at all times
maintain the sense of the passage, but the "B" translation
may contain some gaps in vocabulary which would evidently be remedied
quickly by recourse to a lexicon. The translation attempts to reflect
the student's understanding of the place of the text in the larger political,
social-historical, and/or literary context of the ancient Mediterranean
world.
A C translation is average work that solidly meets the requirements
of the assignment. The student demonstrates basic knowledge of vocabulary,
morphology, and syntax, and construes complete sentences that, while
they may not accurately convey all of the nuances present in the original
Latin and Greek, nevertheless are grammatical and syntactically complete.
The student is only marginally aware of shifting semantics and idioms.
Some technical mistakes may include but are not limited to: verbs translated
according to person, number, and mood, but perhaps not tense or voice;
nouns translated according to case and gender, but perhaps not number;
the student may miss comparative and superlative adjectives or adverbs
altogether.
A D translation is below average work that nevertheless demonstrates
a serious attempt to fulfill the assignment and shows some promise
but does not meet the requirements of the assignment. The translation
may
have one or several of the following identifiable weaknesses: vocabulary,
morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics.
An F translation is substantially below average for the assignment.
It is either incomplete or incomprehensible. It deviates substantially
from
the Latin or Greek so as to be unrecognizable. It adds or omits words
from the original language so as to compensate for a lack of syntactic
coherence.
