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Pre-AP Strategies for Assessment Design in Latin Courses
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by Wells S. Hansen
Milton Academy
Milton, Massachusetts
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| | Using Level-Appropriate Standards and Tasks
Ideally, Latin programs that lead to AP courses and examinations incorporate some aspects of AP preparation at all levels. Such preparation need not be tailored to the particular AP Latin courses offered. Instead, schools in which any of the AP Latin curricula are taught may prepare students in the early years of study by attending to the broader goals of AP Latin courses. In particular, students should have practice in reading Latin at sight and demonstrating mastery of the Latin that they read through writing essays and performing grammatical analysis throughout their high school years. These are broadly useful tasks that can be put into practice in high school classrooms in ways that best prepare AP students while at the same time enhancing the experience of students who do not continue on to AP courses. By understanding the ways in which the AP Latin Examinations assess particular skills that are, consequently, emphasized in AP Latin courses, high school teachers can develop effective introductory Latin courses that train high-performing Latin students throughout the sequence of classes. Teachers who understand how AP Examination assessment supports AP Program goals will enhance their programs by including assessments and tasks aligned to those of the AP Program in all levels of instruction.
Students can be prepared for the demands of the AP Latin Examinations through the inclusion of specific curricular components, especially assessments, that are appropriate for students in the introductory language-learning levels. In particular, all teachers in a department that trains potential AP candidates benefit from a knowledge of - The items included in the multiple-choice section of the exam
- The method of the scoring of the translations in the free-response section
- The standards used in assigning points to essays in the free-response section.
Awareness of these aspects of the AP Latin Examinations encourages teachers to employ level-appropriate standards and tasks modeled on those of the AP courses. The inclusion of AP-modeled assessments enhances the quality of Latin programs and better prepares students for AP courses.
By including translation and analysis of unseen passages as methods of assessment through all levels, Latin programs will help students gain confidence in their reading ability and encourage desirable long-term learning strategies. Students who are accustomed to evaluations that are based on their ability to read and understand Latin passages that they have not seen before are rewarded for the effort spent on acquiring and retaining a strong vocabulary base. Perhaps more importantly, students so trained become accustomed to employing grammatical knowledge to understand sight passages under timed conditions.
Incorporating Sight-Reading Practice
Although the syllabus-specific design of the AP Latin courses may tempt some teachers to emphasize AP texts and vocabulary throughout the program, such an approach is unlikely to serve broader Latin learning goals or AP preparation well. It is hard to overemphasize the fact that three of the four passages in the multiple-choice section of the examination are ones that the candidate will not have seen before. Even in the case of those passages that are read as part of the course, practice in sight-reading trains students to identify correct responses on the multiple-choice section confidently. In the free-response section, examinees who are accustomed to solving grammatical problems with recourse only to language clues, not passage recall, will make fewer mistakes in translating those passages that they have seen before. As teachers and department heads design programs, they should bear in mind that all the AP Latin syllabi are designed to be read in a single academic year. Students who are well prepared prior to the AP year will find the texts read in the AP course interesting and rewarding. The emphasis in the years proceeding the AP year should be on preparing students for a collegiate level of reading and understanding, not on prereading parts of the syllabi. Students who have gained confidence in reading Latin at sight reap benefits that serve them well throughout their academic careers and beyond, not only in their AP year.
In courses that lead up to AP, assessment of work on unseen passages should not rely upon the task of translation alone. In the initial stages of language study, students are quick to employ context clues to help them through grammatically challenging passages. The appropriate use of these clues is a valuable skill in language study, but excessive reliance upon context or gist comprehension can be especially dangerous in ancient languages. Because the social context and dramatic setting of the Latin passages are distant from the world of the student reader, attractive, yet false, interpretations of the author's meaning and intent present themselves in almost every sentence.
Students should be rewarded for giving precise grammatical and lexical information about the passages. Not only does this train the student who is faced with a passage that he has not seen before to focus his attention on the relevant details, but it also mirrors the assessment used in the multiple-choice section of the AP Latin Examination. On the multiple-choice section, students must identify the agreement and reference of adjectives and pronouns, the forms of verbs, and the construction of clauses. Teachers can find excellent suggestions on the Course Home Pages for classroom practices that help students to focus on grammar in their search for meaning.
When students are asked to translate, assessment must include literal translation. Many programs also require of students, especially in the second or third years, more polished, or even verse, renderings of ancient passages. Such exercises can be valuable tools for instilling an understanding of Latin literature. However, providing opportunities for literal translation in the first year of Latin study is critical, especially in the cases of students for whom Latin is the first language they have studied in a formal setting.
Middle school and early high school students grapple with the concept that there are many, but not an infinite set of, correct renderings for each phrase. Teachers at the lower levels will need to select or compose passages brief enough to permit students to render every word correctly in the allotted time. Students should also have the opportunity to check through their work for precision in agreement, tense, number, and so on. By reviewing the "scoring guidelines" for the translation questions from recent years (available elsewhere on this site LINK?), teachers can develop their own 18-chunk scoring guidelines appropriate to every level at which they teach. In order for such assessment to be effective, students need also be taught how these guidelines work. By scoring one another's translations and reviewing their own work, they learn to pay close attention to the correct rendering of each part of the translation they produce.
Writing Is Critical
Just as reading Latin requires practice, so does writing about what one reads. Competitive students in high schools today learn in a hectic world of pressure and limited time. Their school experience includes little opportunity for the ideal process of essay writing with all its steps of conception, writing, rewriting, and editing. Teachers, too, with little time available, pack as much content as they can into every lesson. Given these realities, asking students at the introductory levels of Latin study to demonstrate their mastery of Latin passages by writing about them may seem a poor use of homework or class time. The fact is, however, that there is no substitute for practice in the acquisition of language skills, and writing is no exception. Students must be rewarded for putting into words their interpretation of how the parts of a passage or poem work together.
In first-year Latin, short essays may consist of little more than paraphrases and summaries of each sentence of the passage. However, teachers who demand that students write such essays as a way of demonstrating their understanding of passages will soon find that they can lead students to include interpretive sentences as well. The first step in analytical writing about Latin passages is learning to articulate the function of every part of a passage, including the rhetorical intent of sentences and clauses and the details of diction.
Students who read with the assumption that they will be asked to write interpretive essays that include every part of the passage will not only be ready when they sit for the free-response section of the AP Latin Examinations, they will also acquire lifelong habits of close analysis and clear expression. It will be a disservice to students to assume that they will be able to write about Latin without practicing this skill throughout their study. Again, a review of the scoring guidelines for recent examinations (in the Exam Questions section of AP Central) as well as the analysis of student essay responses published annually in the Classical Outlook will serve as a starting point for teachers who want to engage students with this task.
Teachers who take a longitudinal view of their programs will probably find that sight-reading, grammatical analysis of unseen passages, and writing are included in various places within the existing curriculum. The challenge in curricular design is to find ways to emphasize and assess these skills at all levels so that students have the chance to develop polished skills over time. A department-wide review of assessment in courses leading to the AP Latin Examinations provides opportunities to emphasize features that not only better prepare AP students but also better prepare students at all levels. This outcome is at the heart of the AP mission.
Wells S. Hansen teaches in the Classics Department at Milton Academy in Milton, Massachusetts. The author of numerous journal articles, papers, and reviews, Dr. Hansen currently serves on the AP Latin Development Committee.
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