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

[Lisa Jing]

I went to Boston Latin, which is one of the few public schools in the country that requires advanced coursework in Latin. Though four years of Latin are required at our six-year school, this requirement is a newly "relaxed" one. I took AP Vergil in eleventh grade, however, my friends who took AP Latin Literature loved it. I highly oppose canceling this exam. From my own experience taking eight AP exams and being at a high school where students took and excelled at many APs, AP Latin is the most stringently graded. Because the students who take it tend to be much better prepared than those in more widespread offerings such as AP US History or even AP Calculus, the standards tend to be much higher. I prepared much more for AP Vergil than my other exams, even AP French Literature. The experience was incredibly fulfilling and I really believe future students deserve the opportunity to take Latin Literature as well.

Lisa Jing
Harvard College '10
Boston Latin School '06

[Leanne Glenn]

I went to D'Evelyn Jr/Sr High School. My Latin teacher spent a very long time convincing the administration to allow him to teach an AP Latin Literature class, which I am finding extremely useful in my Classics studies. I really improved my translation abilities during that class. Also, we learned more meters than just dactylic hexameter. Since we did Catullus and Ovid, we learned the Sapphic stanza, the elegiac couplet, and dactylic pentameter. So far in my college courses, we do not spend that much time on figures of speech, meter, or grammar. The extra year of AP Latin I had in high school really helped prepare me in terms of those topics for my college courses. I realize that keeping this examination makes more work for the AP board because they have to grade a very difficult test, which is more time-consuming than the Vergil exam (e.g. 6 free response questions instead the 5 on the Vergil exam). They really should keep this examination because the Latin Literature class is an extremely challenging useful experience, especially if someone is majoring in Classics. Even if a student does not major in Classics, the intellectual challenge of the AP Latin Literature syllabus will help them with their reasoning and writing skills.

[Kate]

The AP Latin Literature exam was hugely influential in my choice to become a Classicist and shaped how I look at poetry, antiquity, and life in general. The Vergil course is an excellent one, but I think there is something about the lyric poets, particularly Catullus, to which high schoolers especially can relate and respond. Keeping that bridge between the classical and modern is critical to the future survival of Latin in the classroom.

Kate Kosloske
Columbia University, BA Classics, 2003
University of York, UK, MA in Modern Literature, 2005

[Jessica Jankowski]

In my opinion, cancelling the class not only strips students of an educational opportunity, but also dismisses the opinions that teachers and students alike hold on this topic.

Jessica Jankowski
Lincoln-Way Central HS
New Lenox, IL

[Kevin]

For the sake of my teachers cirriculum, and my
classmates future!

Kevin Koreman
Barrington High School
Barrington, IL

[Dennis]

I wont even be able to take more than one latin AP test, but It is still a shame that this test is being taken off the list. Latin is one of the best things that ever happened to me, and I want others to have the same great experiences I did.

Dennis Yuan
Naperville North High School 09
Naperville, Illinois, 60563

[Katie Stebbins]

cancelling this exam is a travesty. end of story.

Catherine Stebbins
Georgetown University '11

[Sarah Lesniak]

Having taken the AP Latin Literature exam in my Sophomore year at Princess Anne High School in Virginia Beach, VA (and the Vergil exam the year before), I can think of no better benefit to my overall Classics education than having taken both of those exams. The amount of knowledge I took away from the Literature exam, the appreciation for such a broader scheme of Latin literature greatly contributed to the fact that I went on to finish 7 years of Latin by the time I finished high school and took up a Classics major in college. I plan to teach high school Latin right out of school, and I look forward to being able to share the brilliance of more authors than just Vergil with my students in a setting that will benefit them in college and potentially allow them to further study their interests in the Classics field.
University of Notre Dame '10/'11

[Cherie Marceau]

Cherie A. Marceau

[Joey]

I am currently taking the AP Literature course at my high school and it has been the most enlightening class I have ever taken. Without it my education would be incomplete. In our modern society the goal should be to increase the potential for learning and broaden one's educational perspective, not to allow close-minded individuals to hinder and impede the sharing of knowledge. If the decision to remove AP Lit. from the curriculum is not ameliorated, a grave and regressive blow has been dealt not only to Latin education, but to the entire American educational system as a whole.

Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil.
-Plato

Joseph Hodges
University of Florida '12

[Benjamin V. Hicks]

Benjamin V. Hicks
Graduate Student
Department of Classics
University of Texas at Austin

[Bethany]

Bethany, University of Mary Washington, Latin Language and Education Double-Major. AP Latin Lit is essential. Students of the Latin Language need to be exposed to multiple authors in depth and begin learning how to undress the layers of their works.