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

[kathryn]

SAVE AP LIT! It was my absolute favorite classics course that I have ever taken! why would they get rid of something that is so comprehensive, educational, and enjoyable?!

[Keely K. Lake, Ph.D.]

This will cause a problem in my program to be sure. I teach the two courses in alternating years, and if I get a junior in 3rd year who takes the AP, he will be told by college counseling that he should not take Latin 4H as it "looks bad" on applications to go from AP to Honors. My particular irritation is that, although it is perceived as harder by some, my students find the Literature syllabus easier, so it was a lovely 3rd or 4th year class for us. This decision will reduce the number of AP tests taken by the students at our school.

Keely K. Lake, Ph.D.
Wayland Academy

[S. Oesterheld]

I teach math, but I have a son who is taking Latin. I am probably one of the biggest fans of Latin who never actually took the class. It was the first place where I saw my son challenged and his love of learning really encouraged. He is a sophomore in Latin III. Our school system alternates which AP class they teach each year. Next year they will teach Vergil, since they taught the AP Lit course this year. That means that he will be unable to take the AP Latin Lit. I really resent that College Board has made this decision in the middle of students HS careers. I think it is a really poor move anyway, for all of the reasons many of you have stated, but I really think that they should have allowed students who have started high school to finish their planned course of study. I think all decisions such as this should not take place until three years down the road, until students who are freshmen the year the decision is made are allowed to finish HS. I have lost almost all faith in anything the College Board does. They no longer (maybe they never did) seem to care about the students and learning at all.

[Darcy Krasne]

The AP Latin Literature exam absolutely should not be canceled. Regardless of which version of it one takes, it provides a high school student with a valuable opportunity to study these works of literature and to be far better rounded before tackling college courses than they would otherwise be -- not to mention the AP students who are not planning to continue taking Latin in college!

Darcy Krasne
graduate student
Classics Dept
UC Berkeley

[Tolly Boatwright]

Please sign me up as one opposed to the cancellation of the AP Latin Literature. It will terribly affect Latin students and the study of classics in the US.
Tolly Boatwright
Duke University

[Jessica Seidman]

I took the Catullus/Ovid exam in 1997. 11 years later (four of which were spent teaching the AP syllabus), I'm preparing to write a Catullus dissertation. Much as I love Vergil, I never would have chosen this career without the beauty of Catullus' verse.

Jessica Seidman
graduate student
University of Chicago

[Michael Bennett]

Add my name to the list of those apalled by the action of the AP in dropping APLit. They should all resign en masse and hang their heads in shame for having led poor unsuspecting Latin teachers on to writng syllabi for an exam soon to be eliminated. They sond like Philistines to me.

Michael J. Bennett

[thomas norfleet]

It's too bad that so many students enter colleges and universities with no background in literature and languages. Your decision to discontinue AP Latin is a terrible blow to education in the United States, and I look upon it as a threat to our national security.

Thomas Norfleet
Hendersonville High School
Hendersonville, Tn

[John F. Hawley]

Having just gone through the audit, I am surprised that the course is cancelled. I enjoy teaching this course and will continue to teach these authors, AP or no AP, but since students seem mesmerized by the AP moniker, I doubt that as many will sign up.

[E Montgomery]

This announcement has major repercussions to the Latin program I've been trying to build for the past three years. Next year I finally have enough students to have a Latin III and they were ALL looking forward to taking the AP Latin Literature exam in their 4th year. What assurance can I possibly have that the College Board with not just randomly and without notice drop the AP Vergil exam after I go through the audit process for it? I believe their actions have severely diminished the College Board's credibility in the professional community and should bring into question among all the disciplines whether this monopoly that the College Board has enjoyed for so long is really in the best interest of students and teachers.

Ellyne Montgomery
Homewood High School
Homewood, Alabama

[Matt Briddell]

This is a horrible decision from the College Board, made with no consideration from teachers whatsoever.

[Timothy Pepper]

There is little I can add to the many excellent points that others have made on this site -- I also find it a great shame that the slightly complicated administration and marginal profitability of the Catullus/Ovid-Horace-Cicero exam has led the College Board to cut this exam without exploring possibilities that could allow this exam to be retained. I suspect that the audits of the exam revealed that there were relatively few students who took advantage of both Latin Literature tracks, and the College Board figured that they would have a captive audience if they made Vergil the only alternative. As someone who took both sets of exams, I feel that the AP Latin program gave me opportunities in my academic and professional life that I otherwise would not have had (though much of the credit must go to brilliance and devotion of my HS Latin teacher, Mr. Craig). All of my classmates from my Catullus/Cicero class have gone on to receive post-graduate degrees, one of our number now works for the World Bank, another has just received a professorship, and several of us are either close to completing or about to receive doctoral degrees. The best student I have ever taught had come out of a Catullus/Horace class the year before my Latin Prose Composition class, and he performed at a level that I would have expected from an advanced undergraduate. While no doubt the abilities of each of these people and their teachers contributed to their success, in aggregate it would be hard to deny that the exams offered us all opportunities that would have not otherwise been available. I find the College Board's decision breathtakingly shortsighted, since these exams embody the best aspects of the AP program, namely "to prepare, inspire, and connect students to college and opportunity," as the College Board's own mission statement says. We can only hope that they will realize the great damage they are doing to the schools that offer AP Latin programs and the students who take them, and that they will reinstate the exams in some form.

Timothy Pepper
Graduate Student, UC Berkeley