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

[Andrew Reinhard]

Speaking personally (taking my Bolchazy-Carducci hat off), I think this is a terrible decision that speaks of upper-level fiscal mismanagement and strategy on the part of the College Board. Cutting programs is always a short-term solution, a quick-fix, and does not address the root of the problem. In cases like these, the College Board needs to realize that there is a very great and genuine need, however small the population, and that cuts will have averse effects to those people involved with the program at school-level. So instead of cutting, the College Board needs to find a way to generate revenue to keep all of its programs active. Failing that, I wonder if the APA would be able to take some of its capital campaign funds and create a subvention for AP Latin Literature while working with the College Board and AP Latin Committee in finding a way to sustain this program. I would prefer that the APA not do this, as its funds should be dedicated to its on-line initiatives, but if there is no alternative....

Also, I am wondering if, as others have posited, that this might not be the tipping point for going in another direction with our Latin authors. ACL is the natural place to look for the creation of a new program, one that colleges can use when considering students for enrollment in each new term. The problem here is great, however, in that your typical college administrator only knows "AP" or perhaps "IB", but that's it. Maybe that's a gross assumption, but the ACL would definitely need to put together a campaign to educate colleges about ACL-vetted courses, syllabi, and testing. Perhaps there is another route to take, and we should look to our friends in the UK to see how they manage.

I am interested in seeing what the APA/ACL says in rebuttal to the College Board's decision.

Andrew Reinhard
Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers

[Ryan Williamson]

Although the AP Board's decision is certainly short-sighted, I do not think it is the death knell for Latin in secondary schools. The carrot of AP credit is certainly a draw to many students, and there are those students who will now be tempted to enroll instead in AP courses in other disciplines. However, AP credit is only a draw to a particular type of students. There is an entire subsection of students who are not interested in taking an AP-level Latin course. In the past, those students would often refrain from taking upper-level Latin courses, choosing instead to devote their energies elsewhere. Without being beholden to the AP curriculum, we teachers have the chance to encourage more students to take upper-level courses (and isn't that ultimately our goal?).

So many teachers have commented that their curriculum alternated between AP Vergil and AP Latin Literature vel sim. The silver lining in this cloud is that Latin literature has survived for 2,000 years, and isn't going anywhere, regardless of whether or not the AP Board deems it necessary to offer college credit for reading it. We can continue to offer courses in Catullus, Ovid, Cicero, and Horace, reading not the text that the AP Board demands, but whatever interests our students (and us teachers). We can read more of Catullus 64, or study the First Catilinarian. We can have our students read Medieval Latin stories about zombies and elephants and misbehaving monks. No, we can no longer offer AP credit as an enticement, but we can still offer a lively, challenging, and rewarding class. It is clear from what teachers have been saying about their students' reactions to this decision that students do in fact appreciate studying Latin literature on its own merit, not simply for the AP credit. And in offering a course that is not tied to moving at such a challenging pace as the AP syllabus, we could actually have more students in our Latin III, IV, and V classes.

The other negative impact of the loss of this AP exam is of course the fact that it could make it easier for administrators to ax Latin courses that are not offering AP credit. If we can actually use this change to our advantage and increase our numbers, that will make it very difficult for any classes to be cut.

Perhaps this is simply the naivete of a young teacher, but, going forward, we must all turn this situation into a positive.

Ryan Williamson
Currently: MAT student, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Formerly: Latin teacher, St. Louis University High
Soon-to-be: Latin teacher, Regis Jesuit High School Girls Division (Denver, CO)

[Steve Perkins]

First, I want to reply to Andrew's idea of going in another direction via the ACL. Less than a half hour ago I was having this same discussion with a colleague who suggested what Andrew did. My concern, like his, has to do with branding. "AP" has passed into the national consciousness like "Kleenex" or "Kodak." That said, I see no reason why we could not devise our own rigorous testing under the auspices of a national organization like the ACL. If we had the credibility of the ACL behind such a program, and had the affirmation of other Classics groups in the US and abroad, then credibility should be enough to help with the marketability of such a program within the universities.

Second, with regard to what Ryan said, he is correct that we should not be slavishly tied to the AP curriculum and that not allowing it to dictate what we do frees us to teach what we want and what is appropriate for our students. The problem, however, is not so much with students who are craving AP Latin credit. The problem is with families, administrators, and legislators who put inordinate value on the sheer number of AP classes offered and taken within a school. For those with this mindset, the choice for a student of AP Spanish or Latin IV is no choice at all. The AP Spanish will win every time.

Steve Perkins
Latin and Theory of Knowledge Teacher
North Central High School
Indianapolis, IN
www.nclatin.org
www.ncsymposium.blogspot.com
www.epistemelecture.org
www.nctok.blogspot.com

[Laura Abrahamsen]

I have been thinking about this all weekend. What an outcry there would be if the English Literature Exam from now on were to consist of a test only on Hamlet. Students may reference no other works by Shakespeare, and may not receive credit for any knowledge of any other works written in English by any other author. Competence in English Literature will be measured only by a student's yearlong study of Shakespeare's Hamlet.

[Steve Perkins]

Outstanding point! If anything, the Latin Lit. syllabus should be expanded to include options for other authors. The Vergil syllabus as well could be expanded to touch on one or two of the Eclogues and a small section of the Georgics. While these other works obviously do not hold a candle to the Aeneid, it would give students a bit more balanced picture of this author. It would be like throwing in a few sonnets along with the major Shakesperean plays. Actually, I would like it if in the Vergil syllabus there were a requirement to explores certain passges from the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Aeneid selections could profitably be reduced to allow for the inclusion of other material that would help student obtain a more well-rounded perspective. Excellent point, Laura!

[Susan Strickland]

To Whom It May Concern:

Maine is a state where Latin is alive and well and growing! From our state-wide Certamens to daily classroom conjugations and translations, more and more students are learning to love Latin and see its relevance in their studies. It not only develops their language skillls in English and other spoken languages, it develops their minds by necessitating copious amounts of memorization, grammatical permutations, logic and rhetoric skills, and just plain good thinking. The goal of any foreign language study is to be able to read and understand primary sources. The AP exam gives them an opportunity show this skill with pieces of literature that are academically and artistically valued. To cancel the AP exam for Latin is to remove a crowning achievement for some Latin students. To deprive those students of this reward--as well as college credit--for their hard work is unacceptable.

Susan Strickland
Maine Classical Christian School
Freeport, Maine

[David Tafe]

I would like to add my name to the petition to save the AP Latin literature exam. I also support the compromise suggested by Richard LaFleur, i.e., that a scaled down version of the Latin Lit exam be given in alternate years to the Vergil exam.
David Tafe
Head, Classics Dept.
Rye Country Day School
Rye NY 10580

[Allen Miller]

This is a travesty. The notion that Vergil, great as he is, represents the whole of Latin literature is benighted at best. I suspect this is a decision based more on profit than on the needs of students, teachers, or the discipline of classics.

Allen Miller

[R.L. Ryder]

I was privileged to have the opportunity to take 2 AP Latin courses when I was in school: (the Vergil and Catullus-Horace courses). It certainly influenced my decision to continue on to study classics at university, and pursue it as a teaching career.

I cannot imagine these options not being available to other students. I believe the diversity in options is needed to help keep Latin alive at both the secondary and collegiate levels. The fact that the AP board did not contact any Classicists (and/or Latinists) in making this decision is disheartening as well.

Ronnie Ancona's letter and Rick LaFleur's response (posted on eClassics) both enumerate for me the many reasons that this action is a mistake on the part of the AP Board. I sincerely hope they will reconsider their decision.

Reagan Ryder
Maret School
Washington, DC

[Jo Green]

I would love to be able to teach a Latin Literature course with MY favorite authors, but students (and parents) want the AP designation on the high school transcript. It's a blow to public schools which have to keep up the enrollment for a course to 'make' each year when competing with all the other AP/IB courses. I still cannot believe the College Board did this without consultation or input from teachers.
Jo Green
Westlake High School
Austin, Texas

[Kelly Loris]

Our Nation's Latin students are some of the best and the brightest.
Please don't punish them for traveling the road less taken.
Kelly Loris
Latin Teacher
Marian Catholic High School
Chicago Heights, IL 60411

[Edith Foster]

This seems like a really terrible development.

As a classics teacher and the mom of high school students taking Latin, I speak from experience when I say that the options will be unacceptably narrow for Latin students after this year. To speak only of my own kids: My high school sophomore is manging to squeeze in the AP Horace-Catullus course by doing it a year early; my university student, now a classics major at Cornell, did both AP Vergil and AP Horace-Catullus. The latter got a huge amount of depth from doing both courses.

It's not that kids are so interested in Latin when they begin these courses, but that the close association with the authors during the high school years gives them a sense of familiarity that makes the ancient world seem much closer, and much more real. The college curriculum is already so crowded: to bring students to college with even less familiarity with the authors would be to crowd it even more.

Every high school classics scholar needs the chance to take more than one Latin author! The restriction of the Latin Literature AP to Vergil is a severe blow to both high school and university classics courses and must be combatted with as much energy as possible.