Ancient Greek

SPRING 2026

This course offers an introduction to ancient Greek, both its language and its literature. In one semester students in this course will learn foundational elements of ancient Greek (orthography, morphology, syntax, vocabulary) and consider themes including daily life, mythology, and ancient history. Course work will involve reading and writing in ancient Greek and in English, and students will be expected to speak ancient Greek in basic conversation and question-and-answering exercises. Because Attic Greek, the language covered in this course, and Koine Greek, the language of “Biblical” Greek, are closely related, students seeking to read such texts in Greek will also find this course beneficial. Finally, throughout the term students will complete a reading project in which they will read in translation a work of Classical Greek literature of their choosing and will present this experience to the group at our final in-person meeting.

We will meet as a class weekly on Zoom. Your presence and robust participation in our virtual meetings is an essential component of the course, and will help foster a sense of intellectual community that is essential to learning. We will also meet in-person 3-5 times throughout the course to build class community, for field trips, and to engage with guest speakers.

Synchronous meeting requirements: 

• Weekly virtual classes: to be scheduled on a weekday evening 7-8 pm.
• In-person/F2Fs: there will be 3-5 sessions scheduled mostly on Saturdays either from 9am to 12pm at SF University High School or 12-4pm at a museum such as the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.

  UC Approved: LOTE   

About the Instructor

Evan Ward (they/them) – SF University High School
Evan Ward has been teaching at San Francisco University High School since 2022 and has been teaching Latin, Ancient Greek, and Classics courses generally since 2014. Evan earned a BA in Classics from Xavier University and a MA in Classics from Vanderbilt University. Evan also did PhD work in both Classics (Cornell) and Applied Linguistics (Ball State University). Evan’s graduate school work focused in Classics on ancient philosophy and medicine and on LGBTQ+/Queer language use in Applied Linguistics. As a teacher of Classical languages Evan is aligned with a student-centered, humanistic, multimodal approach to learning which incorporates insights from linguistics and language-acquisition research. Outside of the classroom Evan is an accomplished bluegrass musician (banjo, guitar) and singer, performing regularly at venues in the Bay Area and beyond. Evan identifies as gay/queer, uses they/he pronouns, and lives at home with Andres, a 12 year-old Yorkie.