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

[Nina Barclay]

A speculative question which helps Latin but not German, Italian or Computer Sci...

What if we all told the College Board to take a hike and the ACL did all the"formerly called AP" courses?
We do fine with the NLE etc, etc. All our college peers would respect the results wouldn't they?

Nina Barclay

[Laura Abrahamsen]

I am strongly opposed to this move. A high-school Latin curriculum cannot be represented by a single text of a single author. I think this is completely revenue-driven, by a "Non-Profit" organization to which many of our best and brightest have given much of their professional knowledge.

On the other hand, we as classicists are a small enough group--could a joint effort of the ACL and the APA create and administer placement exams that both colleges and secondary schools could recognize as valid measure's of a high school Latinist's skill?

One more thought as an Ohioan...with the new venture by our governor of "Senior to Sophomore" college-equivalency for high school students, a high-school Latin teacher could become certified as an adjunct prof. at a local public post-secondary school, and the high-school course offered in that teacher's classroom would then receive transferable college credit--no AP exam needed. Perhaps the College Board should think twice. The direction in Ohio is to bypass them entirely.

Laura Abrahamsen, Ph.D.
Teacher of Latin
Lakewood High School
Lakewood, Ohio

[David McCarthy]

I am wholeheartedly in favor of your proposal. We really don't need ETS. After all, classicists created and graded the AP exams for years. Let's cut out the middle man, eliminate the 'not-for=profit' profits and finally take control of our own advanced Latin courses.

David McCarthy
Silver Lake Regional High School
260 Pembroke St.
Kingston, MA 02364

[Frederick Bee]

I started teaching Latin three years ago, in a school that had only recently extended its curriculum to three years of Latin. It had also just become an IB school. I teach IB Latin, but it has not attracted or retained my best Latin students, who want only AP courses. My department head has been very eager for me to teach AP to the cream of my students; and I have persuaded some current sophomores to be my first AP year.

This new development thows a spanner in the works, since there is a much larger overlap between IB Latin and AP Latin Literature than between IB and AP Vergil. I could have taught any combination of Catullus/Horace/Ovid/Cicero and met the needs of both groups. There is a Vergil option in IB, but it is at most one-third of the course.

I can understand that economics suggest only one examination. It would be preferable, however, if that examination were not to not focus on a single author, studied over a full year or more. Would it be possible to create an IB Augustan Literature? Or an IB Vergil and Ovid? Such a solution would provide some variety, of material for the teacher and of experience for the students; while also allowing us to create a program that meets the needs, and maximizes the numbers, of our various students in their fourth year of Latin.

Frederick Bee, Bishop Amat Memorial High School, La Puente, CA 91746

[Aimee Brown]

In a message from The College Board entitled "Connecting Students to College Success" is the following: "The Board encourages the elimination of barriers that restrict access to AP courses for students from ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic groups that have been traditionally under-represented in the AP Program." As a teacher at the Cleveland School of Science and Medicine, a Cleveland Metropolitan School District's school of choice, where Latin is required course of study, I too was dismayed to hear of this decision. How can we expect our inner-city youth to gain entrance to top colleges if we are restricted in the number of AP courses we offer?

[Mark A. Keith]

The surprise leimination of the AP Latin Literature exam will be damaging to Latin programs all across the country. I understand for the College Board it is a question of money, but on the school end it becomes a question of grades, grade-point averages, and admission to colleges. My upper-level students have told me in the past that if advanced Latin, i.e., AP Latin, weren't weighted, they would not take it becuase they "had to have" that 5.0 boost to their GPA. Now that AP Vergil is our only option for sweetening their GPA pie, many students will look elsewhere.

Mark A. Keith
Riverbend High School
Fredericksburg, VA

[Jennifer Ice]

Jennifer Ice
Latin teacher
University City School District (MO)

[Melony]

My students love the AP Latin Literature course. It can't be cut!!
Melony Carey
Muskogee High School
Muskogee, OK

[Ruth Breindel]

I have been teaching both APs for over 20 years, and rely on their "draw" to keep my program going. For one organization (the AP) to have such an impact on teachers, both in HS and College, is not a good thing; we are seeing the results of this now. Unilateral decisions are very bad for those affected. Unfortunately, the students and their parents want the AP on the transcript; otherwise, I would gladly go along with those who want us to make our own exam. I am pleased that the HS and College people are making common cause - only good can come of that.
Ruth Breindel

[J. Parker]

This decision by the CB will do nothing but hurt secondary and college Latin. It is a challenge now for a 3/4 AP Latin class to make at my school, but without the AP Latin Literature course, I can see the AP Latin program I struggled to create going away altogether.

James Parker
Westside High School
Houston, TX

[Kathleen Durkin]

On behalf of those of us currently studying to be teachers of Latin, I am very disappointed to hear about the cancellation of the AP Latin Literature examination. Our goal as teachers is to educate our students in both the language AND its literature. The AP Lit exam promotes this goal, as it not only offers the college credit(s) that students pursue, but also the opportunity to expand their knowledge of Latin authors as opposed to the singular Vergil. This stamping-out of the exam is a loss to both students and instructors alike.

Kathleen Grandinetti
(M.A. student) Hunter College
New York, NY

[David Ringwald]

AP Latin Lit. is an amazing class. I can see the point in Virgil, he was an amazing poet and it is a historic work. I can't imagine reading one book all year. Same plot, same meter, same author. I think at this point I just get more out of AP Latin Lit. I've learned multiple meters, different styles of writing, a broader understanding of Roman culture. I find it more interesting, because I'm not learning about Roman History that happened over 500 years before the book was written, I'm learning about Roman History that was written as it was happening, I'm learning the ideals, the culture, the beliefs of the Roman citizen of the Late Republic. I become deeply acquainted with their relationships, their jokes, their friendships, their hardships. There is so much to learn from AP Latin Literature!


~David Ringwald
Latin Student
Paul VI High School
Fairfax, VA

Future Latin Major
University of Dallas
Irving, TX