AP Latin Literature Cancelled -- Please Add Your Name

[Andrew Reinhard]

Salve,

As many of you know, AP Latin Literature is being cancelled, although AP Vergil will remain in place for the immediate future. Please read the letter from the AP in the news section on the right and the letter from Ronnie Ancona in the Blog, and if you feel strongly about keeping the AP Latin Literature program alive and active in the United States, please add a comment to this post with your name and school affiliation attached. I will collect these in preparation for what is sure to be a counter-offensive by some of the leading lights in US Classics education. Thanks for adding your names to the list.

Andrew Reinhard
Director of eLearning
Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers

[Timothy Lau]

I have only just found out about this terrible news, and, despite the announcement was made for this "protest" 1 full year ago, I would still like to register my name in support.

I remember well organizing a self-study group for the exam in my senior year of high school. I rounded up 3 others, and off I was to be a Latin instructor armed with nothing more than a love of the language, a Loeb Classics text, and a burning desire to "avenge" my 4 on the Latin Vergil AP! The class was entirely improvised, and we were hot-headed fools to think we could actually succeed.

My profession now might have little to do with the Classics. But from forcing myself to meticulously translate all those lines in a logical, intelligible fashion, I had been able to raise my English writing ability far from its humble and simple immigrant origins. From immersing myself into the history of the Greeks and the Romans, I would derive a deep love of the past, which would take me to northern Israel for an archaeological dig even while Hezbollah was raining rockets in the region. From the immortal sentiments of "ave atque vale" and "sunt lacrimae rerum", I would come to deeply appreciate that we humans are bound by the same wants and the same emotions, a lesson which I find particularly relevant in this age of endless division and disease and strife. Leading the self-studying group for the Latin Literature AP was also a test of intellectual prowess and character, and I would rank the 5 I got on it one of my greatest achievements. My life has been immeasureably enriched from these studies, and now generations of high school students would be deprived that which I myself enjoyed and benefited from. I wish, though I doubt it, that the exam once canceled could ever be brought back.

But on a more global perspective, I would dare say that the AP program is one of the few bright lights of the American high school education system. Taking these tests do prepare students for the vigors of undergraduate studies by giving them a taste of what it is to be graded at a national, adult standard. Indeed, from my experience at Cornell I would say without hestiation that those who took more APs almost invariably do better. When American students are increasingly found wanting in comparison to their foreign peers in depth of knowledge and breath of exposure, from the sciences to the arts and even to the English language itself, what good is it for the AP program to contract itself by jettisoning exams and cutting up topics from the high school curriculum?

Timothy Lau
J.D., Stanford University, 2009-
Sc.D., MIT, Materials Science and Engineering, 2005-2009
B.S., Cornell University, Materials Science and Engineering, 2002-2005
Latin "V" Literature AP, 2002
Latin IV Vergil AP, 2001

[ZLR Stavis]

I think a policy decision as large as sacrificing the future our cultural (republican) heritage in favor of Chinese should not be left in the hands of a private institution motivated by profit, such as the College Board.

[Melony]

Are we safe for now? Did they decide not to cancel it?

[Sarah S]

This is terrible! The only AP Latin course offered through my distance learning program is Latin Literature, which I am taking this year. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like there will be an exam for me to take in May...
I think they should discontinue the Vergil exam if they have to do one - it seems like AP Latin Literature is more inclusive than Vergil.

[Maria Callas]

Please add my name to your list:

Eleni Manolaraki
Assistant Professor of Classics
University of South Florida, Tampa